Drakiden Ruby:The Rewrite
by GeneralAllenWalker
Summary: Ruby could barely remember the times, when she had been human, not a monstrosity of scales, claws and wings, a predator that lived with it s pray. Ruby asked herself from time to time if she was insane, wanting to be a Heroine despite being a Monster. Her Soul mate told her to see the good in things, that she should realize her dreams, but could she really do that?
1. Chapter 1

**Drakid Ruby: The rewrite** **: Prolog Part 1  
** ** **  
Hello folks, welcome to the rewrite of Drakid Ruby, something what you probably already figured out from the title. I wrote the first version of that story to better my writing and English skills as this is my first story and I am not an inhabitant of an English speaking country. My abilities as author were simply not good enough to give the frankly good idea and the about one year pre-planning the credit it deserved.****

What that idea is, well you have to read the fic for that, but know that this story is rated M for graphic violence, pain, death, blood and sexual content, if you do not want to see that stuff than you should not read this fanfiction. That said this will not be an orgy of darkness, organs, character deaths either, just a fair warning, everyone can die.

So enjoy the story.

RWBY belongs to Rosterteeth not to me. The Drakid well these cruel Bastards belong to me.

 **xxxxxxxxxxx**

Her feet hurt. Every toe, every muscle, every nerve hurt. Yang did not think in her whole life she ever walked this far, and if someone had told her before this day that the simple act of moving ones legs could cause this much anguish, the eight year old wouldn`t, could not have believed it.

But she could not simply stop walking or go back. The physical pain in her feet was still preferable to what she experienced at home, where her formerly perfect life had fallen apart two months ago.

It had been at the late evening, past the time where she should normally already be in bed and sleeping. Her Daddy had been watching something on television, when her Uncle arrived. Qrow looking not the best was the norm, he was always reeking after that beer stuff which tasted so horrible, with dirty clothing and the worst of all, sturdy hair. But that night, he looked like all that had been multiplied by at least a hundred times.

It was as if Remnant itself had stopped as she heard what had happened. As she heard that Summer Rose, her mother, who had raised her and Ruby, had died. She barely registered how Qrow told Taiyang, that they had found nothing but her bloodied cape and parts of her arm. Or how her ever strong father broke down, howling in pain.

The next few days had been nothing but a blur. The symbolic funeral of her mother, Qrow leaving to hunt the culprit, claiming that no mere Grimm could have ever killed Summer, Taiyang either staring for hours with empty eyes in the air, or drinking huge amounts of alcohol, while lashing out at her and Ruby. Her little baby sister asking her where Summer or why Daddy was doing this.

She had to take care for both, her father and her sister, while she herself wanted nothing more than to wake up from this nightmare. But she did not wake up, as this was not a dream. It was the cold, cruel reality.

She had tried to take her DaddyÂ´s stuff away, but he caught her while she had been emptying it into the bushes. He slapped her really hard. She did know how long she cried after that, but started ultimately in her lonesomeness to search through her mommyâ€™s old stuff. That was when she found out, what would lead her to the decision to leave her home.

Summer Rose, the cookie making, monster slaying, story telling, in the sleep singing supermom, was not her real mother.

She had found a single letter, that showed her father, her mother, Uncle Qrow and a black haired women. The odd thing about the picture was that her Dad was hugging the black haired women and kissing her on the cheek. A black haired women that looked, with exception of her red eyes and black hair, exactly like Yang.

It did not take long for her to realize the truth. The letter also held a description to a cabin, and that it was her real mothers favorite place on earth. She thought a long time what to do, before finally making the decision.

Yang would set out to find her real mother.

She could not allow Ruby to remain back at home, not while her Daddy was acting like he was. So she had lifted her little baby sister out of her bed, wrapped her up in thick clothing to keep her warm, sat her into a cart, and went to find her real mommy. Yang took some food too, including some of Summers last cookies with her.

She knew from the description of the cabin that she should arrive any moment. That was what Yang told herself while pulling the cart with the person she cared for most sleeping in it. Ruby had awoken a couple of times and asked her what was going on. Yang told her that they were making a trip, giving her some of the cookies and one of Rubys favorite comics. Her sister could not read it of course, so Yang had read it loud for her while she gnawed on the cookies.

That was nothing unusual, Yang had taken Ruby on cart trips like this before through Amsel. Always together with her Daddy and Mo- no Summer, who laughed over how the fact, that she always insisted on being the one pulling Ruby around. The memory of these happy times brought tears into her eyes.

Yang blinked them away and swallowed to get that weird sensation out of her throat. She couldn´t let herself become all teary again, she had to look after Ruby! She threw a glance at said girl, who was happily sleeping in the cart.

"Don`t worry Ruby, everything will be alright again. Yang whispered, while she gave in to the smile forcing itself on her face. It helped to make the pain and exhaustion seem to disappear. As she turned her head away from her sleeping sibling, she saw something, that nearly caused her a heart attack.

The cabin, she could see it! It was barely two hundred meters away

New energy flew through her veins and she practically flew to the building. She would have a mother again! If Yang had been less strained by the past weeks and the tour she took, she would have maybe noticed something was wrong with the small building. That it was rotten and generally in a very bad shape. Or that some kind of dark, red liquid had been splashed all over the windows.

But these crucial details were overseen by the young girl as she rushed to the house. Yang gripped the clinks of the door and pushed. A horrible smell splashed against her, reeking of blood, rotten flesh and death. The blonde childs brain had trouble picturing the sight in front of her, needing a few seconds to react. Yang turned around and threw up. She fell on her knees vomiting whatever in her stomach was out.

There were bodies in there.

Of people.

Of woman and man.

Of children.

Yang was not capable of finishing the thought, before vomiting again, the picture of the mutilated and tormented bodies filling her mind. She felt like she spewing her very internals out.

What? Who? How?

"Yang?" sounded the tiny, sleepy voice of her little sister through the air.

The world around Yang seemed to slow down, the blonde girl realizing that her vomiting had awoken her little sister, who was just now rising from the cart blinking. Yangs body moved on its own, with no input from herself.

xxxxxxxxx

Ruby had just awoken after what have been a rather strange dream.

She remembered her big sister taking her on a trip, which has been really strange since it had already been late and it was dark and cold outside. Yang had put her in a cart.

She could only remember parts of the dream. It had changed between just her big sis pulling the cart, where she slept in through a dark and cold forest and parts where her entire family had been with her and everything was bright and happy. It had mostly varied between those two.

However there had been also a third, very short part of the dream right at the end.

The picture of her family happily going through Patch had slowly melted away until only she and her mother remained. Summer had been different how, looking terrified. She had screamed at Ruby to wake up and to run. Ruby had been scared, before hearing some weird gurgling sound. Blackness had crept through her surroundings and swallowed all the light and happiness.

Summer had pushed her behind her, glowing in ever brighter silver light, apparently trying to keep the darkness away. The bright silver rays drove the darkness back and revealed the most terrifying monster the young girl had ever seen.

It looked like a woman, with dark scales covering her whole body. She had two huge wings and a long tail coming out of her back, glowing in the blackness.

The very picture of this being had filled her with immense fear and shock. She could neither move nor breath.

The very next moment exploded the silver light pulsating from her mothers body into a pillar of silver light that reached way up in the sky. Ruby thought that she saw something like wings illuminating from her mother, before Summer threw herself at the monster. The monster also surged forward, glowing in pure darkness. Ruby believed that she heard her mommy yelling to the monster, that she will never have her baby but she wasn`t sure. She woke up the second when the two connected.

Ruby slowly rose up blinking, noting someone was retching nearby.

 **xxxxxxxxxxx**

Ruby screamed in surprised when Yang collided against her pressing her face against her sisters chest while wrapping her arms around her, rounding her immobile Ruby tried to wiggle herself free, mostly because her sister smelled terrible.

"Yang you stink! Let go!" she squeaked when she wasn´t able to free herself from her Yangs powerful grip.

Her sister did not loosen her grip, but tightened it while looking around. It, it is fine Ruby! Just, just do not look behind me okay? We, we have to leave!"

Ruby tried once again to struggle against her sisters powerful hug, before she realized that Yang was trembling, no shaking with her whole body.

"Yang, why are you shaking so much? If you are cold, you can take my blanket, if you want." offered Ruby.

Suddenly her sister´s hug tightened even more, making it a bit difficult to breath. Ruby tried to complain, but was stopped when she noticed that Yang was slowly backing away from whatever was behind them.

In the next moment several things happened.

Ruby managed to turn her head, saw the Grimm, let out a high pitched scream and the Beowulfs attacked.

 **xxxxxxxxx**

Yang knew that she and her sister were done. They had no chance. Yang saw how the three Beowulfs jumped and tried to dodge.

Keyword being tried.

She slipped and landed on her bottom. "Sorry for pulling you into this, sis." she thought, closing her eyes to await her end.

But the bone breaking and flesh tearing pain did not come.

Instead something akin to water sprayed all over her face and probably about the rest of her body, Ruby`s too. She slowly opened her eyelids half expecting to see a Grimm maw. But instead she saw the back of a woman. A woman with black hair, who was currently busy with killing the Grimm.

That should have relieved her, but strangely it didn`t. Quite the opposite actually.

Every cell, every instinct, every part of her body was filled with intense dread, twisted in terror.

The women turned around and her very soul screamed. She looked human, with two exceptions.

Her eyes were slit, similar to lizard eyes.

And her teeth.

"STAY AWAY!" Yang screamed, grasping a rock beside her with the intent of throwing it at the woman.

She never got that far, since the woman just disappeared.

Yang looked around frightfully, before freezing when she heard a cold cruel voice. It came from behind her, the sound making her very soul recoil in terror.

" _ **You know, trying to throw rocks at someone who just saved your life is not very nice. Why do you not just drop that little stone?"**_

Yang noticed how the rock she had held fell to the ground, covered in something red. She tried to turn her head but the time seemed to slow down. The child finally managed to look at her arm. Or better what once her arm had been.

It was brutally twisted and broken in one multiple directions, with parts of her bones sticking out every ten to twenty centimeters.

There was an irritating high pitched sound in the air. It took Yang a moment to realize that it was her voice, that she was screaming. The smiling woman took hold of the mess which had belonged to Yang a moment ago, and her screaming intensified. Yang felt how she collided with a tree, hearing something akin to a sharp crack. It sent searing pain throughout her upper body.

It was so surreal. She felt her own screaming grow farther and farther away. How the darkness began to creep through her vision of sight. How even the all dominating sense of pain started to fade away.

Yang could barely recognize how the thing pressed her screaming and crying sister against the ground, to force some kind of blackness into her. " _I am so sorry Ruby…._ **So how is that as a first chapter, good or bad?**


	2. Prolog 2

**Drakiden Ruby: Prologue Part 2**  
 **Hello Folks, General Allen Walker here, I hope you all had a nice day.  
Here comes chapter 2. I donâ€™t own rwby, I do own the Drakids.  
A BIG thank you to everyone who followed, faved or reviewed my fanfiction.**  
Guest: **Well than at least tell what so bad is, so that I can correct my mistakes.**  
Merendinoemiliano: **Thank you.**  
Guest: **No this fic is not enabler and the first version wasn´t either.**  
Xerzo LotCN: **That was a mistake. Thank you for saying it, I corrected it already.**  
Ultimate Kuuga: **Thank you**  
Cheese Puffx: **That is good to hear, hope you´ll enjoy it.**  
Ghost Findley **: Good.**  
TalonIbnLaAhad: **That is wonderful to hear. And well yes Yang and characters will have to go through quite a large amount of shit.**

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 _Yang´s world slowly began to slip away, every sound diminished, the pain and all over forms of sensations faded away._

 _"Am I dying?" asked Yang to herself, though even the process of thinking was slowing down._

 _An odd sense of peace and calmness filled her. "Huh. Dying is not all that bad." noticed the blonde girl._

 _Yang saw something akin of a movie. No, that was not right. She saw no movie, she lived one. Or better multiple ones, where she was multiple people at once._

 _She saw a scene were she was born, felt how she experienced the first sensations of live outside of her until that moment known world. She did not like it and screamed. Oh how she screamed. But these screams calm down as she was taken by her father._

 _She was her Daddy; felt his, her pride as she looked at herself. She saw how her other mother Summer stormed in the room, babbling at the woman that had just given birth to her. That might have upset her prior her death, but now, now she felt nothing but peace._

 _That was not the only scene Yang was experiencing._

 _She was in dozens of situations of her life, in dozens of people. She was experiencing the luck that Summer felt, when she watched her and Ruby playing, while feeling her little sisters simple joy of toying with her hair._

 _She smiled. Ruby and Summer had been the only ones that enjoyed the privilege of touching her golden pride._

 _The disappointment that her father experienced, when he found out how she had fought with a girl on the playground. She felt how utterly helpless her Uncle Qrow had been, when he had been tasked with baby sitting them._

 _The different "Movies" of her life came ultimately to one end._

 _To the cabin in the woods. Where she had died._

 _It was different though._

 _There was no monster, no Ruby. Yang went calmly to the cabin, feeling that that was, where she had to go. She just knew she had to go there._

 _She opened the door to the cabin, but did not found a room filled with mutilated corpses. Instead there was a light, one big light, similar to the sun. But unlike the sun, it did not blind her in any way._

 _Yang was about to step in the light, when she heard, well something. She turned around to see, what it was._

 _There it was, in the middle of the street, was Ruby. Her little, innocent sister. She was in the clutches of a being so wrong, so evil and twisted, that it nearly broke Yang just looking at it. That twisted creature did something with Ruby. With her soul. It changed her sister, flooding her light with darkness. But there was something in Ruby, that tried to protect her. A grand silver light that shielded her. But the creature forced the light back._

 _Yang witnessed how the light had to give more of Ruby up, until it only defended her mind and soul. Meanwhile the tiny girl let out more of these sounds, screams of despair and anguish, as the darkness pierced through the light that protected her mind. As the silver finally broke down, something else replaced it._

 _And that was Yang touching her little sister. She ran to Ruby`s screaming form wanting to somehow help her. Only the Darkness in Ruby`s body immediately expanded into the new host, that was not protected by silver eyes the moment her and Ruby`s souls connected._

 _Yang screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed._

 _The agony which was ripping her very soul apart could not be described by words. The pain she had felt from her physical injuries had been nothing compared to that._

 _Yang felt like she was freezing to death, while her insides were filled with boiling liquid. She felt every pain imaginable and more. Yet through the hellish anguish, she felt something else enter her body._

 _And everything went black._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Yang felt pain. The pain of her twisted and broken right arm. Laughable mercy full to what she just had felt.

Frantic screaming was filling the air. The screaming of her sister.

Yang Xiao Long slowly opened her eyes. Once lilac, they were now blood red, with silver and black sparks. They showed nothing but rage and resolve.

Yang rose up, her entire body glowing with fire circling around her. She concentrated her energy on her legs, before sprinting to her sister and the monster. Fire engulfed her fist as she closed in at them, intending to punch that thing with all of her might.

Her fist only meet air as her target let go of Ruby and dodged her attack by jumping back.

 **"Oh, you are still alive? And you even activated your Aura?"** asked the female monster, the surprise clearly audible in her voice. **"Well, I can not complain. What I just did was quite exhausting, so a little snack wouldn`t hurt. And when that little one screams and struggles while I feast upon her, well that makes it all the more delicious!"**

Yang, even though she had her aura activated, could not even register when the woman attacked. She just felt something hitting against her with the force of a speeding train, before she was torpedoed through the next tree.

The force of the impact was enough to pulverize most of the lower part of the tree and to break through Yangs aura.

Everything was blurry for Yang as if she tried to get up again. A sharp lance of pain shot through her lower body. The source of said pain was a branch, one which was poking through her guts.

" **Y** AN **G**!" screamed someone, who sounded a lot like her sister.

The next moment she felt how she something wrapped around her and lifted her in the air. Yang tried to fight whatever was holding her, but the strength she had mere moments ago was gone. Slowly her view, fuzzy from the heavy concussion, began to clear itself.

In front of her was no one else but her Uncle. Qrow Branwen.

Than everything went black again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Qrow Branwen, elite-veteran huntsman, official teacher at Signal, unofficial member of the Black Order, knew of things in this world that were to terrible to let the public know of them. He himself, as the fourth strongest operative of the Order, had been tasked more than once with eliminating these threats to mankind.

He had developed a sixth sense, a gut feeling, that helped him estimate him how powerful his opponents were. Every huntsman developed such a thing, but Qrow prided himself with the fact that his instinct was way more accurate than that of the standard elite warrior. Okay that was partly because of his not actual human nature, but still, Qrow could confidently say how powerful someone is by being near said person and was right 8 of 10 times or so.

And just in this moment, his gut told him the thing before him was stronger than a normal huntsman. Not only stronger than a normal huntsman, but also stronger than Winter, that Schnee chick he had peeked on, while she had bathed. Stronger than Taiyang, Amber or Glynda.

And certainly more powerful than him.

The list of those who had ever filled him with such a feeling of overwhelming might could be counted on one hand. Ozpin, who was literally an immortal wizard. His bitch of a sister Raven, who was matriarch of the Branwen. Summer, a silver eyed super huntress and direct descendant of the silver Goddess. Lastly, Peach. Freaking Peach.

That was the only thing stopping him from savagely attacking and killing her, for what she had done to his nieces. He quickly glanced at Yang`s cruelly injured body and Ruby`s with darkness covered darkness form. It was not easy to look at, and the only thing stopping him from immediately attacking was he clearly felt they were still alive. Barely.

 **"Now that is impolite, has your mother never told you to never interrupt someone, who is busy eating?"** asked the she-beast, her voice sending shivers through Qrow`s whole body.

"No, she hasn`t." Qrow answered, "But even if, you hardly qualify as a someone, Drakida!"

The Drakid smirked at hearing the huntsman´s words. **"Oooooohhhh, you know what I am, hmmmm! Now that is interesting, it makes you a part of the tiny one percent off all the tasty people I met in the last two months which recognized me as what I really am. Judging by the fact I heard the heartbeat of bird closing in, and suddenly turned into the one of a grown man, would you happen to be a Branwen? It´s been literally ages since I had the culinary luxury of meeting a member of your race!"**

Qrow only nodded as answer.

Her smirk turned into a smile, and she happily clapped her hands together. **"Splendid! What an exceptional day. And here I thought the world had become boring and weak, filled with so called "heroes" who cannot even touch me, and are so easy to break. They already are willing to lick their own stomach acid or their families blood up, after having a bit of fun."**

Qrow gripped his sword so hard that his his bones could be seen, the images of the people in his head on which that description fitted. He had known some of them!  
 **  
"But than, after I had tortured a group of travelers with their families to death, I met these two girls. And one of them looked exactly like the silver eyed goddess. So I smashed** **the blonde ones arm into bits and started putting my curse into the silver eye. And she was especially resilient against that. And then well, I guess that the blonde girl somehow manage through being on the brink of death to form a soul bonding and became the soul mate of the little red one-"**

Qrows blade smashed into the ground where she had been only a moment ago. The power behind the attack shattered the ground and the shock-wave sent dirt flying everywhere. The warrior was filled with one thing.

Rage.

It had overtaken him the very moment when he had heard that the Drakid had infected his niece with the curse, selecting little Ruby for a fate so much worse than death. The fact Yang had chosen to become Ruby´s soul mate only added to the horrible situation. Qrow had failed his nieces, but he sure as hell would make the one who was responsible suffer too, even if he could inflict nothing what would came equal to what had happened to the girls.

His instincts screaming in alarm was the only warning he got before something slammed with the force of a crashing airship into his sides, sending him at least twenty meter through the air before his body meet ground again. He heard something speeding through the air and managed to bring his sword up, using itâ€˜s broad side as a shield against the incoming projectile. Said object completely disintegrated into dirt and dust upon meeting his sword, but managed to leave a notable dent.

Qrow managed to recognize the Drakid´s standing not to far away from him through the dust, casually holding a rock. Thanks to his aura enhanced reflexes, he barely managed to avoid the second stone as he rushed forward, closing the distance between them in nanoseconds.

The Drakid dodged his stab in the very last moment, with a smug smile on her face that said she did not even consider him a threat. Mid motion, he whirled around and directed his blade with all the force he could muster at that smirking face, intending to destroy the grin and the entirety of her head.

 **"Hmm, better than the rest, but still no where near what the Paladin of the old days were able to do."** said the grinning monster to the shocked huntsman before her. The sword was only a centimeter away from her face, halted by one of her fingers.

 **"Why do not make this more challenging for me? If you manage to make me bleed I let you and the other two go. But I would hurry if I were you. The blonde has maybe five, considering the other ones soul mate ten minutes till she dies from her wounds. And the other one, well judging from your reaction you are aware that all help comes to late for Miss silver eyes!"  
**  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
 **  
OH my what will happen to Ruby and Yang now?**

 **Also kinda super important.**

 **. .**

 **Cause a lot of people did not get that in my original story. Yes I make Ruby and Yang soul mates, but there is are important distinctions between the normal â€œWe belong together! Yay letâ€˜s bang!â€ soul mateship of fanfiction and the one in this fic. In my story this soul mate thing is crucial for the plot of the story.  
There will be pairings and romance in my fic (and I am not saying if these will be homosexual ships or straight ones, as both are possible) but Yang x Ruby will not be one of them.**

 **So how was the chapter? Please write complains, feedback or suggestions into the reviews or PM me.**


	3. Prolog 3

**Drakiden Ruby: Prologue Part 3**

 **Hi folks, I hope you all had a nice time. Thanks for the many reviews last time.** **Sorry that it took a bit longer to update, my beta reader had to work.**

Xerzo LotCN: **Eh, well yes they are sisters, so they won't have sex or anything similar. Yes to last part of the review, they are pretty much two sides of the same soul.**

Guest: **Thanks and I will do my best.**

Merendinoermiliano: **Yeah, well, you'll have to read farther to find out if that happens, but a little hint, that bitch is way stronger than Qrow and the Qrow of my story is already stronger than the cannon one, so he'll need help.**

Sasha37 **: That is a very good question, that I can not answer without spoiling like half of the plot twist I had planned. If I needed to answer it without spoiling all of that I would say yeeeeeeeeeesss(very far stretched yes)**

Dragoncrafterex: **Yes I would be very happy if you would be my beta reader**

 **So now without further delay to the third chapter of this story, I do not own rwby, I do own the Drakid.** XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Qrow had fought opponents that were stronger than him before; Peach, Ozpin, his sister, and Summer.

Ozpin always pulled some magic Aura trick out of his ass, Raven used her stupid portals and Summer was like a squirrel. And Peach, well…. That woman normally used her Semblance to screw him (metaphorical speaking) into such a poor state that he mostly hit only himself, assuming he did hit anything at all.

Fights against her normally always ended with him waking up in some public place, partly undressed. And some pieces of "Art" drawn all over his face. And he was sure that Peach had been the one to draw these on his face! Not that he had any right to complain, given he was the one who had taught her that in the first place when she was younger, to get back on Taiyang and Raven (And seeing his sister with a coal beard on her face after losing against the green-heads semblance had been so worth it!).

Not that he was jealous on Peaches semblance. If his semblance had fucked his life, than Peach had been in comparison beaten up, raped and left half dead by her semblance.

But now wasn't the time to reminisce.

He was in the middle of a little problem called a 'life or death situation.'

Qrow moved faster than he had ever before in his life. His sword shattered rocks, felled trees, pulverized the ground.

The Drakid dodged his attacks with infuriating effortlessness. He snarled angrily as the Drakid dodged another swing.

" **You should better hurry."** the woman taunted. **"The blond girl has maybe seven minutes left.** **I can hear her heart slowing down.** **And you know what her death would mean for her soul mate, do you? How it would shater her mind and** **being** **?"**

Qrow screamed in rage and lashed with his sword out again, intending to hit with a mind crumbling fast cut towards her midsection.

She twisted herself out of way so that the sword missed her by mere centimeter, before kicking out to hit Qrow in the stomach with enough power to send him flying, through yet another unfortunate row of trees. The kick, strong enough to kill a grown huntsman, only infuriated the Branwen more. Glaring, he quickly rose up from the now destroyed wood.

Qrow looked at how the Monster calmly walked towards him, as if she had all the time in the world. As of he was no threat.

The huntsman smirked, before pressing a button on his sword, activating the mechanism that changed it into it's badass scythe form. The scythe wielder slammed his foot into the largest wood piece in front of him launching it at his seemingly unsuspecting adversary.

She simply swapped the near two meter big piece of tree with her right arm away…. And came face to face with a scythe. She just managed to shield her face and stoop the deadly reapers tool with her left arm, the weapons blade cutting into her Aura, only for Qrow to smash his fist into her chin.

The moment the huntsman's hand connected with the woman, he unleashed a super concentrated blast of Aura, smashing her head back.

Qrow had no time to waste on celebrating that he finally managed to hit her, since her right hand shoot up, catching his throat in a devastatingly tight grip.

With his air supply rapidly cut off, he ripped the staff part of his scythe up, ramming it against her chest. He again began to transform the scythe back into it's sword form, aiming the shotgun in it directly at her throat.

The weapon fell unfired to the ground, his entire arm going limp. Qrow could barely see something akin to the tip of a large black tail slung around his wrist, nearly snapping it through massive pressure, while his vision was slowly fading from missing air.

Said grip around his throat suddenly lifted allowing air to flood into his lung.

Qrow ripped his eyes open as he watched flabbergasted how the Drakid arched her head back up, despite having received a blow to head with enough concentrated Aura to cleanly split a giant Nevermore´s skull.

Her eyes had turned into black abysses, with only the slitted pupils left recognizable. Her teeth, which had already been far sharper than normal human ones, had turned into demoniacal murder fangs. Scales, blacker than the darkest night covered the lower half of her face. And yet she smirked, like a creature originating from hell itself at Qrow.

" **WOW!** **That actually hurt!"** said she, sounding far to pleased about that. **"You actually managed to inflict quite the damage on my Aura! You are far, far better than the ones I fought earlier!"** Her eyes narrowed. **"But still you could not make me bleed! WHICH MEANS, THAT I WIN!"**

"I… wouldn't be… so…. sure …. about that!" coughed Qrow out. He slowly turned his left hand, showing a remote detonator and pressed the large red button, causing the two dust grenades he placed on the backside of the piece wood to explode, engulfing both of them in a torrent flames.

The fire and smoke faded away revealing Qrow, who was held by _something_.

The Branwen could only look in shock at the creature before him.

Gone was the feral woman. In her place was now instead a creature that seemed to be purely made out of black scales, it had monstrous teeth, two humongous black wings and a nearly three meter long black tail.

" **Still, no blood!"** it screamed, before rising it's left hand before his face intending to finish him in one move.

But it never came to that.

Moments before the lethal punch could shatter Qrow's head, he himself began to change.

While the bird was far less imposing than the dragon like beast holding it, the crow was small enough to slip through the monsters claws and to fly as fast as it could away from the creature.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"FUCK!" swore Qrow in his mind. "That is an Alpha Drakid, there shouldn't be any of those left anymore! Forget it, I can not hope to make it bleed, not with regular weapons! I have to get Ruby and Yang and then I have to ru…..!"

His thinking was interrupted by his eyes detecting something akin to a black flash left from him. Before could even properly register that information, crashed something with gargantuan force into his side.

The explosion before had mostly hit the Drakid, who had served as an involuntary living shield for him, which meant he had still a bit of Aura left. And this was what saved his live.

While the last bit of the magical soul shield was annihilated, it was just enough to prevent being forced apart by inhuman strength behind the Alphas attack. Qrow's body, reverting back into his human form, crashed into the ground.

"Seems like running away and getting to the kids is not an option, huh?" thought Qrow. "Seems like I have really no other choice left, gonna hurt like a bitch!"

The Branwen closed his eyes in concentration, ignoring the Alpha who could end him virtually any moment, ignoring the pain originating from at least four damaged, possible broken ribs.

The burning sensation of turning into a bird overcame him, only multiplied by hundred. The sensation hit every single pigment of skin, reaching from his toes to his hair. While the sense of burning, with exception of his back, slowly came down, the huntsman felt how his perception of his surroundings changed. His senses, perfected to the very limit of the for a human possible, began to sharpen, a feeling of wildness, something primal and feral, surged within his body, mind and soul.

He was no longer an intruder in this realm, in the nature of this forest. He was a part of it. He knew the location of the creature already before he opened his eyes. It reeked after destruction and death, after the perverse pleasure it took in murdering. It was a being so twisted, so evil, so dark, so wrong, that it found no equal or even comparison in the world.

Nothing ever made or done by man or nature could equate to the existence of this nightmare of terror, that outshone or rather overshadowed even the Grimm themselves. A monster, whose kind once brought man and Faunus alike at the brink of extinction.

Something his kind had been destined to fight since the times of the silver eyed goddess.

Time and world seemed to slow as the Qrow dashed forward, his tunnel vision trained at the Alpha. He attacked without a weapon, without the protection of Aura, only armed with his avian claws, who where positioned to hit the Drakid's one area, that was protected by a black mass of indestructible, cursed scales.

It's eyes.

Which were widened in disbelief as he moved toward them at a speed that would have made him even nothing more than a blur even for the eyes of a huntsman, vaguely resembling a humanoid.

The Alpha Drakid barely managed to dodge the attack, with the tips of Qrows claws missing her face by the tiniest of distances, while whipping her tail lightning fast towards him, intending to simply smash him with the force behind it.

The Branwen, who would have been either killed or crippled if he'd been hit with that attack, took the for him easiest way to avoid it; By using the sizable wings on his in black, long feathers covered back.

Qrow would, looking back later, slap himself for the stupidity of flying over her tail. While his midsection was not shattered into a thousand piece, what came next was, while still preferable to that end, not that nice either.

He shot in the air, only to feel how the power behind his own wings very nearly tore his right leg out of it's socket.

He had barely time to realize that the Alpha was holding it, before she already began to bash him against the ground and trees, like he was some kind of oversized feathery toy.

While his huntsman clothing and his thick, black feathers provided a bit of protection, it could not be compared to a proper Aura, and he could feel how his conscious started to slowly slip away, while he was smashed against earth and wood.

That however came to a rapid end.

Qrow's enhanced vision began to clear, showing a highly unwelcome sight: the open maw of a Drakid. His first instinct upon seeing the horrid teeth to punch it as hard a he could, but it was undermined by the monsters tail that had wrapped itself like a python around him.

His own mouth opened to let out what would have been most likely a highly girly screech, but something or rather someone else happened first.

"QROWIE! QROWIE! WHERE ARE YOU? COME! I HAVE DELICIOUS CORN!"

These words, sounding through the ghastly silent forest, made both of them stop in their tracks.

Like one they turned her head towards the source where it came from. It was a medium height woman with green hair which reached down all the way to her rear, filled with leaves and generally looked like they haven't seen any hair product in the entirety of their existence. She wore an equally messy green dress, one which showed a portion of her rather generous chest.

She had no visible armor on her, and the only weapon that could been seen on her was a long dagger. In the sheath. Undrawn. And instead of pulling it out and taking in some combat stance, the woman only waved happily upon seeing him.

All thoughts of fighting and struggling disappeared from Qrow's mind. It was replaced by an overwhelming need to face palm.

Yep, that was classic Peach.

The Alpha's stranglehold on him vanished as the monster let go of him, and dashed towards the one unlucky person who had dared to interrupt her meal.

Said person could only raise her hand before the beast was upon her. It broke through her Aura in few furious punches, ripping one of Peaches arms off in the process.

Instead of being terrified at seeing the brutal death of one of his most trusted comrades, he only groaned.

He felt how soft arms embraced him. Qrow did not even need to look, which greenhaired airhead was hugging him.

"Hi Qrow."

Sigh. "Hi Peach."

 **AAAAANNNDDD Done. So how was it? Hope you liked it.**

 **Leave a review, favourite or follow the story if you want to, criticism and suggestions are always welcome.**

 **Also little price question, what do you think is Peaches semblance and why is it so horrible for her life?**

 **Write the answer in the reviews.**

 **If you get it right I bring the next chapter already next weekend out.**


	4. The green haired high Paladin of legends

**Prologue Part 4: The green haired high Paladin of legends is a 24 year old girl with a weird thing for a dusty, old Qrow.**

 **Hi fol** **ks, it is good to have you here again, hope you all had a nice day. This is the last chapter of the Prologue Arc, enjoy. Critics and suggestions are always welcome.**

Monkayleaf: **Oh we still get to that part, mate. Everything to this point was only the first chapter** **of my old fic** **rewritten.**

Cheese PuffXx: **Chapters will be much longer from now on, Something between 3 and 5k words.**

ShugoYuki123: **Nice to hear**.

Merendinoemiliano: **Thanks for the compliment. Do not worry Peach is not that OP like it seems in this chapter, she has quite some weaknesses, but she is one of the stronger characters in my fic, and believe me you do not want to have her semblance.**

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Qrow already felt in need of a strong drink. He looked at the person passionately hugging him and sighed.

"Peach, why are you hugging me?" asked Qrow tiredly. The greenette, who had pressed her head against his muscular, feathery chest, looked up to him and smiled.

"Well you looked lonely and depressed, so I hugged you so that you'll be happy again, Qrowie!" she said, a smile plastered all over her face.

Qrow felt how one of his eyes started to twitch at the mention of the nickname. He suppressed the urge to correct her, knowing very well how useless it would have been. Instead he opted for gripping at both of her exposed shoulders and looking directly into her beautiful leaf green eyes.

"Peach, we have no time for jokes or fun! When you came here, did you find Ruby and Yang, are they….?" he paused, the worry for his nieces painted all over his face. Peach's cheery demeanor became instantly serious, and she separated her arms from Qrow's avian form. "Yes, I stumbled across them and I did my very best to help them. I managed to stabilize Raven child, but for Summer's, there is nothing I could do."

Upon seeing his breath catch, she quickly added, "She is not dying, just, well, changing." seeing Qrow's horrified expression made her flinch, "Scales, red ones, are growing all over her body. Her teeth have sharpened and I found the beginnings of a tail and wings on her back. Not only her outside is changing, her inner organs are shifting as well as her soul and mind are starting to deform. She is in unimaginable pain, right now. I tried to put her to sleep but my semblance had no affect on her mind. To much is going on inside her and would have most likely damaged her mentally if I had tried something."

" **Oh? So she'll made it?"**

These words made both of them whirled around to see the Alpha Drakid, who had finally stopped killing the imaginary Peach.

She stared directly at them, a sadistic grin on her face. **"That is quite the bad luck you have there, Branwen. If she had died, the whole thing would have been over for her, now you will have to kill her. If you survive."**

The grin on her face grew even more twisted. Qrow felt anger flowing through his veins, but what he felt even more was desperation. He knew what she was talking about. Tears forced their way out of his eyes and disappeared in the dark feathers of his face.

The very next second, before Qrow could pull his suicide via "attacking one of the strongest and cruelest beings to ever exist head on without aura and unarmed" through, he was stopped. In fact all the rage that was burning in him like a Vulcan, so close to erupting, immediately disappeared.

He turned his face around and looked at Peach, who had touched one of his wings, smiling sheepishly. "I hate it when you do that." Qrow growled, but backed down when she pulled a bite on his wing, knowing fully well that she could turn his mind into a dump with a thought.

"Qrowie would you please stand back? Let me handle this, okay?" she said, still smiling. "By the way, I always thought that the only one who could do the Branwen transformation thing was Ravy!"

She turned her head and attention to the Drakid, who stood at the other side of the clearing. All traces of "her" blood and "her" body pieces had disappeared, as if the monster never had killed "her" in the first place.

Peach's entire stance became instantly serious, and while the cheerful smile never really left her face, in her eyes a dangerous spark appeared.

"Sooooooooo." she said in a clearly happy tone, "It is quite obvious that you hear me, but can you see me too?"

The Alpha frowned upon hearing this question, and she took a couple of steps back. For the first time in a long time, she was both confused and cautious.

" **Kinda,"** " she answered, in rare honesty, **"It is not that I can not hear, see or smell you, my brain seems to have difficulties to process the information it gets. That is quite the dangerous semblance you have. There were only a handful of humans that I knew of in my long life whose semblance could effect a Drakid, let alone an Alpha, and who weren't part of the three grand families. Now, I have no idea how your semblance actually works, but I am fairly sure I am about to find it, Hmm?"**

"Yes, yes you are." came the greenette's response, "But allow me one last question, before we start the fun. Did you murder Summer Rose, or are you aware who did it?"

" **Who?"**

Suddenly Peach's smile turned wrong. Artificial. "Grand Paladin Summer Rose, the mightiest silver eyed warrior since the silver eyed goddess! The one person, that I could never best in a one on one fight! My very best friend! The mother of the child, who you turned into a monster! DID. YOU. MURDER. HER?" yelled Peach, her smile vanishing completely. Green energy pulsated around her body, indicating an unimaginable concentrated Aura, whose pure presence alone send cracks through the ground.

" **Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, what will you do about it? Kill me?"** taunted the monster, but it was clearly less secure than about fighting Qrow, as she took on a serious combat stance.

"Kill you? No. I, High Paladin Peach, Paladin Partner of Summer Rose, Godmother of Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long, will not kill you, I will erase you and redeem the mistake of you ever existing!" she screamed, her eyes turning jade green.

The high Paladin's semblance kicked in exactly when the Alpha made her move. Reality seemed to break up and twist, spinning and breaking the world into impossible anomalies. Past and future seemed to mix, filling the Drakid with images so insane, that even the beast herself was nearly overwhelmed by the sudden chaos.

Blinding out her eyesight in order to escape the illusions, the Dragon like creature changed her entire orientation to her sense of hearing. The sound of one fast beating heart was enough for her to locate and to attack her opponent with immensely powerful punches.

The curse that made out her entire being manifested around her claws in absolute darkness, enhancing the already devastating force behind her attacks to a level that ridiculed the mere word "power".

Her fist broke through her aura like through paper, exploding through her ribcage and showered her and her surroundings in a fountain of blood and destroyed organs.

The very next moment impacted an utterly brutal counterattack on her unprotected left side in the form of a hailstorm of aura infused strikes.

The attacks did not use brute force or were delivered with an especially sharp object to penetrate her scales. Instead they were more of light taps from normal human finger tips. And these taps send spirals of pain through most of the left half of the monsters body, achieving in doing more damage than even the strongest of Qrow's rock shattering swings.

" _Those were Aura high precision strikes. The concentration needed to pursue such strikes to deliver just enough aura to cut my nerves! And I heard nothing, how is that even possible?"_ she thought, ripping her eyes open.

Nonetheless she reacted with her far superior speed and reflexes, and whipped her tail exactly through the air where she had been hit. And she succeeded in hitting the assailant and sending her hardly recognizable form flying into the next tree.

She stormed at her with breathtaking speed, taking all her senses into account to locate her enemy's already moving form. She could see her rolling sideways towards the left, while she heard how the Paladin sprinted right and felt through the tremors that reached her feet that she had jumped.

The Alpha chose to ignore all three of the contradicting information and trusted what the curse inside her, her instincts telling her what she needed. Which was proven right, when her claws slammed into Aura shielded flesh and rammed the greenette into the tree.

This drove not only the air out of Peaches lungs, but also succeeded in breaking her infuriating masterly concentration, which lead to her semblance finally pulling out of the Drakid's mind. The alpha pressured her enraged against the wood, with only her Aura preventing immediate death.

" **Your semblance is really fucked up, girl! You do not effect my eyes or any of my senses, you're messing with the memories of my brain itself, am I RIGHT?"**

The Person before only smiled.

"Do not know!" answered she, "why don´t you ask her?"

Before the Drakida´s very eyes, the green haired woman´s form rippled, deformed and changed into Qrow Branwen.

The monster heard a click right to hear ripped her head around and looked directly into the barrel of the Branwen´s swordgun, held by Peach herself.

The high paladin did not hesitiate and pulled the trigger firing a dozen bullets in one salvo, which tore right through the open, unprotected eyes of the Drakid.

She screamed in Pain and stumbled back, letting inadvertently go of her hold on the veteran huntsman, who swiftly took advantage of that, by ramming his claws into her ears, destroying her sense of hearing.

She could only scream in rage and pain, as she felt how the Branwen gripped Peach and flew gen sky, in the direction of the children, she had attacked.

 **So that is the last of the prolog chapters. Hope you enjoyed it, and if that was the case please leave a review.**


	5. The beginning

**Chapter 1: The beginning**

 **Hi folks, how are you? Here is the first chapter of Drakiden Ruby, the rewrite. What I mean with that, well for those who haven't read the first version of this fic, well I basicly had all the last four chapters in one less than 1k words chapter. That was understandably not very good so I wrote it now a bit out.**

 **Guest: Thanks, and while I do not want to brag, I wrote the last chapter in three days, so expect fairly quick updating.**

 **Merendinoemiliano: Thanks. You can be thrilled about the lore, because their will be quite a bit of that in this chapter. To be honest, I have no idea in what kind of relationship and I do think that something like a Tai-Raven-Summer threesome lies even within the possible, but that is not the case in this fic. If you are referring to what is said over Peach's semblance. Well I meant that in the way, that her semblance destroyed her life.**

 **I do not own RWBY, I do own the Drakid.**

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Qrow had his arms slung around Peach, carrying her bridal style; the woman was near comatose from the overuse of her semblance. He felt awful himself, having lost every tiny bit of his Aura in what may have been the hardest fight of his life.

His wings felt as if they were on fire from exhaustion, something he felt in every part of his body. Yet he had to continue flying. Had to get to Ruby. His wings screamed in protest, but he ignored the aching pain, pressed Peach against his from sweat wet feathers, speeding towards the old wood shack. The same one where he, Taiyang, Summer, his sister, and Peach had spent so much time.

They had hunted animals and cooked them. Had had pajama Parties in the wildness, sat around a fire and told each other overly fantastic stories. Every year they had hold an annual meeting, became the funny, childish students, they were during Beacon again. They had labeled it as their favorite place on Remnant, a place only for the five of them.

With time their innocence disappeared, Tai became a blacksmith and teacher on Patch. What a lucky bastard Qrow thought.

He, his sister, Peach and Summer had joined Ozpin's inner cycle. That hadn't been really a free choice for them, with the clan breathing down on his and Raven's necks, Peach's semblance, made any interaction for her with people who weren't elite huntsman, Branwen or silver eyed warriors literally impossible. And Summer would have never abandoned her best friends, not that Oz would have let the last remaining descendant of the silver eyed goddess roam free.

They joined an organization that had been founded by the three great bloodlines, during the age of terror, from an entity who had lived through the darkest age that man ever had to endure. A time of chaos as the creatures, that were known today as Drakid had brought Man, Faunus, and Dragonkind at the brink of total annihilation.

They learned of Salem, the Queen of the Grimm, of the Maidens, of magic and curses. They learned of Summer's legendary heritage, a power that had served as the glimmer of light, that had helped men and faunus survive and prevail against the Drakid and Grimm.

He and Raven learned of their own heritage, of them being not "human" but "Branwen."

He gained the title of elite huntsman operative, what granted him some nice bonuses. Freedoms to torture and/or kill suspects or targets on missions, use experimental equipment, access to confidential information and similar stuff.

Peach, Raven, and Summer on the other hand ascended to something higher than being mere huntresses. They became Paladins, the highest secret rank imaginable. The bonuses they got were... well even Raven had been shocked at the sheer obscenity of what they had been authorized. They had promised to never tell Taiyang, so he could live his normal life.

And despite all the dangers and horrors they faced, the five of them still came to the annual STRQ+P meetings at the shack. They threw parties and Qrow was pretty sure it had also been the place where Tai knocked up his sister. It had been the last annual meeting they ever would have at their favorite place. Raven got pregnant, engaged with Taiyang and they all threw one last giant party there in the woods.

Then the day of the child's birth came. Tai and Raven had some arguments about the kid's name. Raven wanted to call it Eagle, while Taiyang had Yang in mind. They finally agreed; if the child was a Branwen, it would be named Eagle. If it were a Xio Long, the name would be Yang. The naive blond fool had no idea; Raven had not meant anything like traits.

The birth came and the child bore neither blood red pupils, dark hair, nor any other Branwen trait. One final test by the cycle, who had been paying attention as well, revealed the child was human, to the disappointment of the organization. The group had hoped that they would gain a further Branwen. The genes of the Xio Long family had nothing extraordinary (except a supernatural ability to pick up chicks) had triumphed over the ancient bloodline of the Branwen.

He, Summer, and Peach had been relieved about that.

A couple of days after Yang's birth managed the cycle to finally locate the Spring Maiden. He, his sister, and Peach were sent to collect the young girl. The teen tried to resist, but was knocked out effortlessly by Raven. Peach erased the memories of those who knew the girl, and they went through one of Raven portals to get back to Beacon.

It was just that Beacon was not where Raven had sent them. They came out in a forest somewhere in mistral.

There his sister informed them: she had encountered the Branwen Patriarch half a year ago and had killed him in combat, what made her the new Matriarch of the Branwen. And that she was taking the spring maiden for the clan as her subject.

She gave them the choice: either he could become a part of the clan and took Peach with him as his subject. Or he could refuse, which would lead to him being forced into the clan and Peach being killed. Obviously he and Peach had been shocked. That confusion was quickly replaced by anger and in his rage he screamed at her and refused her offer.

The fight after that had been nothing but brutal. Peach attacked Raven, while he did his best to hold the other Branwen off.

It looked like Raven would submit to Peach's sheer might, but than she showed her former comrades a little trick. It had been the first time that Qrow could witness what exactly had enabled the Branwen to fight the Drakid, and not get slaughtered like pigs like all the others.

The combat form of the Branwen.

Raven, on the verge of defeat could suddenly fight Peach on equal ground. Peach still might have won if it had been a clear one-to-one fight.

But it wasn't and four Clan Members, who were just powerful enough to remember the high Paladin to the extent that they could at least guess where she was and attacked her from behind. The split of a second it took Peach to break their minds was more than enough for Raven to land a critical hit on her, cutting her back open and electrocuting her.

She pressed her blade against Peach's neck and threatened to kill her, if Qrow wouldn't submit. He had no choice but to give in, allowing the other Branwen to disarm him.

What than had happened had been nothing but a miracle, a miracle in form of a blond, blue eyed man.

This person looked so incredibly like Taiyang, even Raven was momentarily convinced that the least powerful member of STRQ had made an appearance. But the stranger, who wore a white cloak and swung two swords, one made out of steel and one out of pure Aura, hadn't been the blond blacksmith/teacher/ladykiller.

He cut straight through the lower tribe members and assaulted the Branwen Matriarch head on. While she was busy fighting the newcomer Qrow used the diversion to knock two tribe members out, got his weapon back, and quickly joined the fight against Raven, as it was obvious his sister out classes. Their sword wielding savior was also visibly stronger and faster than him in her avian form.

Rather than fight them, Raven chose to flee via portal, but not before opening a second portal which released poisonous gas. The next thing Qrow remembered was waking up in a bed at Arlington, a backwater town in the border regions of the kingdom of vale. There was only one special thing about the place.

It was home to a freshly married couple named Jim and Violet Arc, who was already pregnant, despite only being married for a couple of months. They had been on a walk in the forests around the town when they heard the battle sounds.

Qrow and Peach had been saved by the last survivor of the believed extinct Arc family, the one family who had done the most supporting the silver eyed goddess during the age of apocalypse.

The Arc were arguably the most dangerous of the three families, despite not possessing any hereditary ability, like the Schnee's glyphs or the bird transformation of the Branwen faunus. They were heroes.

Any born Arc was a natural leader, equipped with a soul so naive, so good, so pure, that they were destined to be a shining light of hope, whose leadership the people would unite and follow. The Arcs had additional huge aura reserves, plus an affinity for semblance that almost always involved some kind of protection or healing.

They had fought the tyrannical regimes that rose out of the carnage the Drakid and Brawen had inflicted upon faunus and humans, who were hunted as the most luxurious of faunus slaves. It was the Arcs who led the color revolution in the bloodiest conflict since the age of the Drakid.

It was the legendary high Paladin Nicholas Arc, who together with high Paladin Eis Schnee, fought the infamous Death Corps, a force of Royalist Paladin, from which Eis had defected. These monsters in human form had decimated the revolutionary armies, but distracted by Eis and Nicholas, they were unable to arrive at Fort Castle, where the Faunus under General Silverfang achieved a crucial victory. The Royalist's had their revenge though. When Nicholas came home, his entire family had been slaughtered by Valesian assassins.

He personally led a huntsman unit into the Valesian Palace, driven by the desire to confront the people responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. Instead he found them dead, slaughtered by a Branwen task force. The castle guard had been taken completely by surprise, unaware of the faunus's bird transformation.

After that he disappeared. The last time Nicholas was seen was when he left the castle, supposedly giving liberated Vale one last glance before vanishing.

After the victory the regimes crumbled. Mantle devastated during the war ultimately remained a monarchy, as well as Mistral, but both had to install councils which at least limited their power.

And now nearly 70 years later they had been saved by an Arc.

The memories of these times slowly faded away, together with what little had been left of Qrow's strength as he carried his friend through the air, to where Ruby and Yang were. His line of sight grew dark, blackness creeping through his vision, while the Brawen raced towards the ground in what was more of a crash than a landing. Then everything went officially black.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

" _Qrow. Qrow, wake up!"_

 _Qrow had the faint impression he could hear someone's voice. A familiar voice, one he knew. This did not mean that he intended to wake up._

" _I SAID WAKE UP!" roared the voice through his head, and Qrow suddenly snapped up._

 _He floated in what looked like his memories. Pictures and film like videos of past experiences filled the seemingly endless void he was in. And directly before him stood what was definitely not a memory._

 _Peach floated not three meters away from him, looking at him with an uncharacteristically annoyed expression on her face._

" _Finally, I tried for two hours to reach you!" she told him, while walking up to start touching his face and body. She stepped a few moments later, seemingly fine with what she had found out. "Well at least you are free of mental damage, that is good to know."_

" _What do you mea..."_

 _Like a bolt of lightning Qrow was struck by the memories of what had happened. Of Yang finding Raven's letter and going to the old cabin on the picture, taking Ruby with her. Him and Taiyang finding out and rushing after her. He had been faster than his old friend and had arrived to find his nieces near death and mutilated. How the Alpha had toyed with him and how Peach had saved him._

 _He moved forward and grabbed Peach at her shoulders. "Peach, what is with Ruby and Yang, are they okay?"_

" _No they are not okay, Qrow, they are alive …. but not okay, not in any way." she said and reached with her left hand up touching his face, "I'll show you." Suddenly their surroundings changed entirely. He and Peach stood in what looked like the interior of a regular hospital room. Regular in all but the patient, who was in the bed._

 _Qrow choked when he saw his niece. He could barely recognize her._

 _Near all of Ruby's visible skin had been turned into red scales, her wonderful silver eyes were slitted and resembled the eyes of a snake. Her teeth had grown and were much sharper and larger, giving the impression they could tear through flesh, muscle and bone with laughable ease. Two large wings protruded out of Ruby's back, slung around her body to form a protective cocoon for her and a second person, who was pressed against her._

 _Yang was sleeping peacefully, hugging Ruby's no longer human form with her arms, while her sisters wings shielded the blond haired girl._

 _Qrow stared at them for what seemed like hours before turning his now steel hard gaze to Peach. "What happened after I was knocked out and Taiyang, tell me everything!" he demanded from the green haired Paladin._

" _Tai brought us immediately to the local hospital and …" she was interrupted by Qrow groaning loudly and face palming. "Don't worry, I altered the memories of everyone who saw us so that they shouldn't be a problem." assured she to him before swallowing a lump._

" _When we arrived, Ruby started to convulse and began wildly thrashing around while crying in pain. It only got worse during the first day, as more and more of her skin turned into these scales. The doctors tried to give her painkillers, anesthetic stuff, but nothing worked, and when the scales began to grow, no needle they had was capable of penetrating it. I tried to erase the memories of the pain but..."_

 _Peach went silent, a haunted expression appearing on her face, while she diverted her eyes from him at what once had been Ruby._

" _Qrow, you can not imagine what her mind was like. Her memories were torn up replaying themselves in the cruelest ways possible, as perverse, twisted shadows of what had been happy things to her. A darkness was on rampage in her mind. It is that darkness was what changed her body into the form of a monster and was now hellbent on doing the same to her mind and soul, I tried to combat it but it.. it…." tears started to flow down her face she turned her face._

" _I.. I… I tried to kill her. When the darkness in her touched me, it nearly drove me into madness. I felt the pain, the suffering, the agony, that tormented her physically and psychically and I,I… I tried to murder Tai's and Summy's child!" Peach broke down, weeping openly._

 _Qrow reached out and hugged her. "It wasn't your fault." he said "You have no experience with the curse. I do not hate you."_

 _Hearing this calmed the Paladin visible down and she continued talking. "The second day, it got worse. She had slept a bit and well, the dreams she had I... I cannot describe them! S-h-e she she dreamed about-" Peach stopped and suddenly Qrow saw images and scenes rushing through his brain._

 _Pictures of Ruby standing midst her slaughtered friends and classmates. Scenes of her hunting them down, toying with them, brutally butchering and than devouring them. The scenes changed, it was no longer the school where they played, no it looked like their house…. Qrow cried out in terror and stumbled away from Peach, fell on his knees and started to violently vomit._

 _He felt how she touched his shoulders and these pictures, no, Nightmarish abominations, were purged out of his brain._

" _That is not even the worst what had happened." Peach told him._

" _What, WHAT could possible be worse than THAT?!" screamed the huntsman, but immediately regretted ever saying it when he heard Peach's answer. "Yang, my little niece, she-she tried to kill herself?" choked out the Branwen. That wasn't possible, the ever happy, lively Yang nearly took her life, the mere thought was so bizarre, so wrong, it couldn't be real._

" _It is true." said Peach with a dead, monotone voice, "I just came in her room, she had already slit her wrists open. Her aura was used up for her injuries, so it couldn't protect her from the scalpel. She had woken up already the first day and has been highly depressed after she heard of Ruby. She blames herself for what happened to her sister and than hearing her screams of agony through the hospital walls, it had been to much for her. When I discovered her, she whispered "I am sorry Rubes" over and over. The way she had flayed her veins it should have already been to late to save her, but her wounds regenerated. I discovered there that she had also this darkness, this curse how you call it, in her, but a much smaller amount than her sister. It seems that it was not enough to do the same thing to as Ruby. It healed her, why should it do that?"_

" _To hold her alive" answered Qrow in a numb tone, "Drakid like to torture their prey, and this way their victims won't die away after the first day."_

" _I... see." Peach said quietly. "It all got even worse when Ruby's wings and tail started to grow. Her screaming and these dreams got even worse, she told in the short periods, when she had been approachable, that she now even daydreamed. Yang's depression deepened and she tried to kill herself again, by poisoning herself with medicine pills when Taiyang looked away for a moment. Luckily he'd been capable of forcing her to throw them up. And Yang wanted to be brought to Ruby. So on the third day we did that. Then this happened."_

 _She snipped with her fingers and they returned to the hospital room with Ruby in it._

" _Taiyang and I were with her, we feared that Ruby would subconsciously attack her or she would try to kill herself again if she saw her sister, but that didn't happen. Instead Yang simply went to Ruby. Ruby attacked normally anyone who went near her, when she slept, but when her sister came near her, well, she embraced Yang with her arms, slung her tail around her waist and pulled her against her chest while wrapping her wings around her .And they haven't moved ever since. I do not know how, but they somehow connected their minds and are now both in some dreamworld. But it seems like Ruby's blood lust and Yang's depression disappeared completely. Yang also handles that curse much better than her sister for some reason."_

 _Qrow let out a bark like laugh._

" _Yeah she isn't human after all, she is a Branwen, it makes sense that the curse would effect in a different way." he told her, "I have to get to Ozpin, if someone knows a cure for the curse that it is him! The longer stay here, the more bad luck will I bring my nieces."_

" _Oh yes, I completely forgot!" said she, "The reason why I came in the first place, the circle sent me to get you!"_

 _Qrow raised an eye brow annoyed upon hearing that. The cycle was a bunch of bastards, who were willing to sacrifice every shed of humanity they once had in order to protect this world. Some may respect if one would be ready to sacrifice childish, family and whatever else they held dear. He still thought that it was their fault that Raven went rogue. The only ones he had respect for were Glynda, Ozpin, and a third prick, that while he really couldn't stand him, had at least ideals he could respect._

" _So what do they want?" he asked._

" _Well you know of nice Jim, right?" Qrow nodded, of course he remembered the Arc, "Well the distress beacon, the one we gave him to contact Beacon if he was in danger, it delivered a massage. To be more precise, it delivered one word. "Monsters."_

" _WHAT!" yelled Qrow, "Why didn't you me tell this earlier! DAMMIT! Peach you have to wake me up now, Oz needs us!" The Paladin nodded, closed her eyes in concentration and everything went white._

00000

Qrow ripped his eyes open and rose abruptly from the sheets of the hospital bed, and in doing so threw the Green haired woman that laid on him off.

Peach moaned in disappointment when she landed on the floor.

"Peach." heard she Qrow speaking.

"Yes?" answered she and looked up, right into the red eyes of the Branwen who stared at her blankly.

"Why were you laying on me?"

She sweat dropped and thoroughly searched her mind for a good answer: "Eh, well you were deeply unconscious and I needed as much body contact as possible to get a better connection."

"As much body contact as possible…." said the huntsman and looked down on him. His huntsman clothes had been torn apart, when he had transformed into his true form to fight the Alpha and he wore now hospital stuff, except that a Patient uniform was normally not that wide open. The thing that he wore left practically his entire muscular, scarred, sweaty chest to view for the world.

Something that Peach did this very moment. Seeing her with such an expression on the face, aka drooling and brain dead, was more than a bit ironic, given how much the resembled Peach´s opponents, who got their brains fried by the high Paladins semblance.

He shrugged it off for Peach´s usual weirdness.

The very next moment the door was opened and a someone who looked like a doctor stormed in.

She looked exhausted, stressed and very tired, most likely of with what she had to deal with the last four days. Peach constantly screwing with her didn´t do her any good either.

She still managed to pull of the same stunt as Peach, in that she completely stopped walking and bathed her eyes in the image of his bare chest and stomach, completely ignoring Peachs existent.

Granted as long as she wasn´t a high level huntress, she was probably not even aware of the third Person in the room, as Peachs semblance immediately wiped out any memory that she had of ever seeing the woman. That particular ability had brought Peach much grief.

Peach snapped her fingers and the woman broke down, unconscious.

"Come on Qrow, we cannot waste any time, we have to go to Arlington. I wonder if these two fulfilled their familiar ambitions." she said, gripping the huntsman's arm to pull him out of the bed.

"Wha.. Wait Peach, let me at least put some clothes on dammit!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Arlington, Two months prior.

Martha stood near her brother Jack, who was announcing the rules for their hide and seek match.

"So, everyone pulls a straw of my fist. The one who get's the short one has to be the seeker, the rest hides!" said he holding up his fist.

"But Jack, that is unfair, you are pretty much assured to not be the seeker then."

These words came from Jaune Arc, something unusual given that the blue eyed blond boy normally being rather shy and quiet.

"Don't be stupid Arc, I'll be seeker if none of you pulls the short one!" Jack responded in his usual rude demeanor towards the ten year old boy.

The older kid had to (for some reason) constantly prove that he was the leader, the "Alpha" of the group, what was pretty strange as Jaune never acted up or even spoke much as long no one did something unfair. That being said, he had the reputation to be very good in hide-and-seek. Especially the hide part of it to be specific.

"Now pull a straw Arc! Let's start!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Martha giggled while she run into the woods, looking for a nice place to hide.

Jack's face when had had actually been the one to get the shortest straw had been priceless! She could faintly hear how he counted loudly to hundred. While he did, she frantically searched with her eyes for a good hideout. She quickly discarded climbing on a tree, not wanting to fall down and hurt herself after all, even if she was the best climber of their group.

Jack and her were the children of one of the local hunters. Not the ones who protected people from monsters and such, but those who hunted animals. Her father had some kind of rivalry with one another, and it seemed like her big brother copied that on Jaune. With the difference that Jim and Wilhelm were still friends (kinda), but what Jack did was pretty mean from time to time.

Her brother went some times with Dad when he was out hunting, and was probably the best of all of them in finding people. He had even claimed that he would have all of them in under one hour.

Martha barely heard the word hundred and the exclamation, "I am searching now!" and she had still no place to hide. She was just about to climb a tree, when a not so subtle "Pssst!" reached her ears. She quickly turned around and saw Jaune behind a bush. He gestured with his hands for her to come to him.

When she quickly moved over to him, he put a finger up to his lips took her hand and pulled her into the bush. The surprised girl followed him and swiftly slipped down a hole. Her surprised cry was quelled by Jaune's hand, which he pressed against her mouth.

Recovering from the surprise she glanced around, and noticed that she was in an earth hole that was a bit deeper than she was tall. Over her were the bushes, and in front of her stood the boy who had brought her here. The realization hit her like lightning.

"That is your hideout!" she said with a hushed voice, and smiled when the boy nodded. "This thing is incredible, no wonder you are so hard to find! How did you find it?"

"I stumbled upon it by accident." he answered. "Are you okay I did not hurt you, did I?" he asked in concern.

She shook her head, before grinning at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?" asked the Arc, a bit confused while rubbing his head in apparent embarrassment. "If you want to leave and find another place to hide then..."

"No, no. I was just wondering, why you would bring me here and reveal this excellent hideout?" she asked him.

"Well you looked a bit lost and in need of help and my mom always tells me to help if someone is in trouble, especially if it is a pretty girl." he answered.

Martha froze for a moment and stared at Jaune.

"Does he realize that he just called me, nope, he doesn´t." she thought, blushing a bit.

"Hmm did you just pull me down here to flirt with me?" she asked with a mischievous smirk, while striving her fingers through her brown hair.

Jaune essentially lit up light a red light bulb and started to stammer.

"What no, I did not mean it like that, not at all! I …." "So you don´t think I am pretty?" told she him and even managed to look hurt.

She had no clue how she stopped herself from interrupting in laughter.

"What no, I mean yes, I mean …."

She couldn´t hold it anymore. She first began to giggle, that evolved to laughter and soon she doubled over holding her belly from laughing so hard.

It took Jaune some moments to see, that she had just messed with. When he realized that she hadn´t been serious, he joined her laughter.

"You know, we should hang out more often!" told she him, when she finally had calmed down. Jaune, who was still laughing, nodded.

"So how long do you think will it take my brother to find us?" came her Question.

She sighed when she saw, that Jaune suddenly had stopped laughing and stared at something behind her with wide eyes.

"He is right behind me, isn´t he?"

The answer came not from Jaune.

"Damn right I am!" spoke her brother.

She turned around and saw her brother in the face. Martha had a feeling he did not look so angry because he had to fight through branches and bushes to fight them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Two months later atlas airport

"You can not be serious! I am a huntsman, not some terrorist!" Qrow yelled at the airport security.

In front of him was, what had to be over half the guards that watched over it, with all of them having their weapons trained on him.

Before on him on the ground lay his empty bag, a whole mountain of deadly weapons, that partly looked like they came straight out of the hands of some murder cultist, who had used them to deliver the blood of his victims to the blood god and hadn´t cleansed it. He knew what he was talking about, he had encountered these weirdos more than once.

He cursed rather flowery. Normally his special operative huntsman equipment bag could not be pierced by standard scanning technology. The technology, that was used on atlas main airport.

It just so happened that the instruments on this particular airport were exchanged for the newest variant two hours before he and Peach had arrived, one of the few, that could see, what actually was in his bags.

Two. Hours.

He hated his semblance.

That the captain of the battalion of Atlesian Soldiers at the airport and who was now interrogating him was an extraordinary unpleasant chick, was probably his semblances fault too.

"Yeah, like that makes any difference. Just because you are a Huntsman, does that not mean you can bring multiple dangerous objects with you to an airport. A week ago a couple of animals, all three huntsman hijacked an airship and crashed it into the Atlas tower."

Qrow froze, when he heard what she just said.

"Do you think we here in atlas forgot the massacre of mantle, when animals, all member of your tribe attacked mantle, while the soldiers were away and butchered and raped thousands for owning what was rightfully theirs!" she screeched.

"Great and it is also a racist bitch who lost most likely her grandparents, when my tribe raided mantle, seriously that is overkill semblance!" he thought.

"I would maybe care, if you weren´t a cunt who most likely owns slaves herself. I am a special operative, and these weapons are my equipment. Bringing them with me lies within my rights as a huntsman, so make way. I am on an important mission!" he growled. This women really angered him.

"Slaves, I do not own slaves!" she exclaimed and suddenly her face and voice became vicious and she drew her weapon, "I just own pets who think, that they can conceal what they truly are by acting like humans. And the huntsman laws only are for humans not animals! MEN, ARREST THA…

Her sentence turned into a blood filled gurgle, when Qrow rammed the cursed blade he had with him into the Captains throat.

The weapon, crafted out of bones of Drakid, went through her steel armor and pitiful Aura like through paper.

Simultaneously all soldiers present collapsed, their eyeballs twisted to such an extent that only the white side was visible, what suggested significant brain damage.

People left and right who had watched what happened break out in panic and ran in all directions away from him screaming.

Not that it helped them, who were mostly just untrained civilians, that lacked even aura. They were utterly defenseless and as such fell all victim to Peachs semblance in only a few moments.

Qrow groaned, when he looked at the airport filled with unconscious People.

0000000

"You did not injure them or anything, Peach?" he asked while examining the scenery. He released a relieved breath when she shook her head. "Good. The paperwork I will have to fill out, when all of this is over will be nightmarish enough, as it is. FUCK!" he cursed and sat down pulling his flask out and swallowed the liquid in it in one long go.

"What was this all about?" The green haired Paladin asked curiously, "And shouldn't we move? They will think we are terrorists."

"No, something this big will be undoubtedly be brought to James. That takes care of us having to search for him." he answered, "So we have only to wait now." He turned to the corpse of the captain and spat on her. "Idiots like that one are the reason why we Branwen went rogue and why Silverfang's pupils became terrorists!" he yelled.

"Silverfang, you mean the Faunus general that won the battle of fort castle? Have you meet him?" Peach asked.

"Aye." Qrow answered. "That was back when we were still attending beacon, about two years before we found you. Our second year had just began and we were to escort a group of vacuan merchants that traveled to Menagenerie. The place had no airport large enough for airships so we went with a ship. We had a private teacher hired by beacon to continue our training as huntsman for the time we were away. Of course that all was bullshit. The cycle had arranged that mission for us to give us special training and to test us. To see how capable we were. The "private teacher "was Ozpin himself. During these months were put through the hardest training you can imagine. Ozpin did not only teach us some fancy sword or hand to hand techniques, he trained us in the use of true Aura combat. You know what I am talking about."

"Yep! Super speed, walking on stuff one shouldn't be able to walk on, Aura sensing and than all the cool, fancy things that I can do and you can't!" the woman chirped happily, before raising her hands creating tiny sparks of green lightning.

"Damn you have to rub it into my wound whenever we have a little talk about Aura." he said, but in a soft tone.

"Ozpin did not come solely to train us, he was there also for another reason. He wanted to recruit Silverfang to the circle's cause. You know, now when I think about it, the only reason why Ozpin was even taking us with him was most likely that the lazy bastard could use Raven's semblance to return home fast. The lazy bastard." Qrow chuckled, and wanted to continue telling what had happened, but he was interrupted by his audience.

"Wait, wait, wait! But I thought Raven can only make Portals to people she cares about? With you, Tai and Summy all on the boat there is no one left she could have ported to!" she exclaimed, while frantically waving her hands in a motion that Qrow had learned meant "Nu Uh."

"Oh but she had friends she could port back to." He answered and laughed when he saw the disbelieving look that she sent him. "Believe it she used to be a good friend of Glynda."

"Anyway the actual intent of Ozpin was not to accompany and train us, he was there to meet Silverfang! And yes we met him. But not in the way you would expect." He told her, leaning forward while speaking to make things more dramatic. "We were almost at Menagenerie when we were attacked by two Grimm sea dragons. Team STRQ took the smaller one on, while Oz handled the larger one."

"We would have made short work of them, but before we could finish them off, an elder Grimm appeared. A Leviathan. The damn thing attacked the ships we have been tasked to protect, and not one of us could stop it as we were still busy with the sea dragons who also attacked. We had seen a Grimm like the Leviathan before and froze when we saw it. It was as large as the Beacon tower and could breath streams of pure destruction. The ships had barriers and modern cannons. They were done in under two minutes."

His fists tightened at the memories.

"Guess they had really bad luck. We were sure, that we would soon follow them, but we didn't. The reason for that is because Ozpin went all out. We were the best team at Beacon, despite only being mere second years, we thought us as powerful as huntsman. That time all these years ago we were shown, the really difference between a group of average huntsman and huntresses and a Paladin."

"With a single supercharged Aura strike splattered he the sea dragon he was fighting over the ocean. Our dragon attacked him immediately, while we were still in shock and while his attention was diverted at the other dragon. The man however already moved to dodge before the dragon had even fired it's breath. The golden beam missed the bastard by nearly a meter and he already shoot something akin to a green beam back, it sliced the thing in two."

Qrow stopped telling looked around and frowned.

"Atlas sure takes it's time to get here. You're sure you aren't knocking them out before they can reach us?" he asked Peach.

She eyed the rather spacious entrance area of the airport before answering. "Nah, my semblance does not go that far. I'll think they getting someone special here."

"Well as long it isn't a member of the royal guard we should have no problem." He leaned back. "Now the Leviathan had finished of the last of the survivors and started attacking Ozpin. We finally snapped out of our shock and tried to take it down, but it swatted us away as if we were flies. Ozpin was weakened and had to fight with all he had to beat it away from us. The Leviathan managed to land a good hit and sent him through a dozen or so of the rocks, that were located there and we were on too. Ozpin himself hadn't had a scratch on him, as he had protected himself with an Aura bubble. Just then something impacted on the Leviathan, it hit with such a huge force that it broke the serpent's thick bone armor."

"There on the water stood this one old man, this one guy the whole mission had actually been about. The Leviathan struck down on him again and again, but our savior deflected everything the elder Grimm brought up against him with ease, using nothing but his hands and fists, even the energy beams. And while he was deflecting attacks, he also hit back. It seemed like the beast was pounded by hundreds of strikes each second, each one leaving a crater on it's monstrous body. It screamed and screeched, while it's opponent remained completely silent. It forced him away with one mighty swing of it's under body, allowing him to blow dozens of holes into what had to be it's soft underbelly. It fled down into the sea leaving a thick mass of shattered bones and a lake of blood behind."

"And that was Silverfang." concluded Peach, who had listened closely. With her shining, jade green, in amazement, she opened her eyes. Her posture resembled more of a child who was hearing some cool story her equally cool uncle, than what someone who hadn't met Peach personally (or wasn't able to memorize her for obvious reason), would expect of the woman. One was probably the most powerful huntresses in existence to boot.

"Yeah, it was Silverfang, one of the few known white mountain wolf faunus, the genius general who lead the color Rebellion to victory, who founded the White Fang and the Faunus society on Menagenerie. The same man who invented five new Aura fighting styles and perfected six of the already existing seven styles. The same man who was a symbol to many humans and faunus alike. We searched after survivors, but to no avail. We were busy for the next month to deal with what had happened and to recover physically and mentally. I and Raven had grown up in the wildness under our tribes care, so we were used to seeing blood. Hell, the sounds of Grimm ripping people apart were our slummer songs. Tai and Summer however had it quite rough. Summer especially had been devastated. Tai himself comforted her, and not in his usual playboy way, but like a true partner. Meanwhile Oz tried to convince the old geezer Silverfang to join the order, he even offered him the rank of high Paladin from the get go, but he declined." With these words Qrow finished the tale.

It seemed to Peach as if there was more to it, but it also appeared like they had company.

"Does Atlas always have to arrive when it is the least convenient?" she complained while standing up, carefully probing the newcomers with her semblance; only to find out that they were rather decent in protecting their minds. "And they aren't the usual fodder. I actually would need to invest some effort to put them down, which means that they are at least stronger than average huntsmen and can probably remember when they see me." she remarked in a cheery voice.

"Well you know how it is with Atlas, they always have to spoil your fun." he answered, while changing his eyes into their bird form. He sighed when he recognized one of the two.

"Yep, have no idea who the white haired, hot babe is, but the other guy is Illahad of the royal guard. Which means those two are probably not from Ironwood." He also rose from his sitting position. "Stupid bastard, that means we have to search him ourselves after we beat these assholes!"

"Uh Qrowie, you think that we can just beat a member of the royal guard and a huntress that accompanies him?"

"Please Peach, I am a member of one of the three great families and you are a high Paladin. The knights of the royal Atlesian guard are a bunch of over hyped pushovers in fancy suits, all they do the whole day is stand around and watch over a bunch of nobles, they don't stand a chance!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"What happened here?" Winter Schnee thought, while she carefully stepped over the countless unconscious civilians.

Beside her Sir Illahad, the eighth Knight of the holy guard, viewed the scenery like Winter did. But instead of weariness like her, his face showed confidence and excitement. The knight pulled his view towards the only standing figure in the area.

"There are the two." he said, and pointed with his armor clad hand at them.

"Two?" asked Winter confusedly, narrowing her eyes. She could only see one; no wait, there was something left to the dark haired man. She tried to concentrate on the second one, but it was like her brain refused to accept there was someone there besides him.

"Yep, two." Illahad answered. "Now let's find out who exactly these two are..." he muttered and activated some secondary function of the highly sophisticated helmet of the power armor he wore.

"What the fuck!" he suddenly screamed. "That's impossible, that must be a malfunction!"

"What's the matter, who are these people?" Winter demanded, as she drew out her saber. Illahad was practically a walking arsenal, a warrior of tremendous skill and the cockiest man she had ever met, excluding her father of course. If the identity of these people could ignite such a reaction from him, than they must be stronger than she had originally thought.

"This stupid thing tells me that the guy is Qrow Branwen!" he answered. "But furthermore its saying the woman is a high Paladin!"

Winter stopped abruptly. "What!?" she heard herself saying. There were no high Paladin in Remnant anymore. The last one had been her Aunt Eis Schnee, and she went missing almost thirty years ago.

"You should bring the visor to repair checks after we are finished here. It shouldn't be making errors like that, its Schnee technology after all." she told him.

"Yeah, will do." he agreed, "But it seems to be right about the guy being Qrow Branwen. I'll fight him, you'll take on the woman, she should be the weaker one. I've always wanted to beat a Branwen!"

"Is that so?" a voice asked, originating from behind them. The cheerful greeting caused them both to spin around. "That is quite mean! Qrowie didn't hurt you or anything like that so why would you want to kill him?"

Winter noticed the Branwen, as well as his companion, had vanished. Her eyes frantically scanned their surroundings, but she saw not so much as a single trace of either of them.

She felt without knowing how Illahad activated activated the gun turrets on his suit. Not that it would be of great use to him; if he fired them here with all the civilians laying around, it would result in a bloodbath.

"Show yourself, cowards!" he yelled out his challenge.

"Hmm, no." again wiped Winter and the royal knight around towards the direction, where the words had came from. They found nothing. "That would be a poor strategy on my side." This time it was like the speaker was left to them.

"Okay, not so stupid like what you proposed your companion to do, so maybe you are not a biggy in tactics. That's fine."

Illahad roared upon hearing that and just opened fire, sending a storm of bullets towards the last location of the voice. Winter yelped and could barely dodge.

"Now that was dangerous, you could have hit some of the civilians. That's not okay, especially after I put them to sleep so that they wouldn't hurt themselves in a group panic. I will now put you down, if you don't mind."

Illahad screamed while his hands went to his head, grabbing the helmet to abruptly tear it off, before falling on his knees. Then he started to repeatedly slam his now exposed face into the ground.

But one thing had changed. The green haired woman doing this stood not ten meters away from him, her grimacing face showing what deep concentration she was in.

Winter's specialist training kicked in, breaking her out of the shock. She charged the most powerful speed glyph that she was able to create. and raced towards the green demon. Her saber contacted; not with her exposed neck, but with the broadside of a massive sword. Before her mind even realized what had happened, a fist collided with devastating, bone shattering force against the side of her head, sending her into darkness.

Winter felt extreme pain searing through her skull, but she managed to remain standing via stabbing her blade into the ground.

Even the act of raising her head and looking up took an already enormous toll on what little strength she had left. She saw the woman, who was now clearly visible, slowly walking towards her. She tried say something, a sentence of defiance, a beg for mercy, she herself did not know. When she opened her mouth no words escaped her, instead she vomited her breakfast together with a good amount of blood.

She tried to think of pleasant things, of her inauguration as a specialist of the Atlesian army. She tried to remember the respect in the faces of her peers, the look of pride her mentor, General Ironwood gave her, the heavenly feeling of having finally fled out of the clutches of her father.

Suddenly the memories changed to a scene of her childhood. A feeling of terror, together with entirely new agony filled her head. Her grip on her weapon vanished and she crashed in the ground, but she barely felt it. Her memories were from what had happened after she had rejected the arranged marriage between her and the son of the king.

She was in an isolated room, with her father. He... he was hitting her, insulting her. It was not the first time he had done that, but now it was worse. She felt the physical pain of her father's slaps and punches. But her father had made a mistake. He had done so shortly after her rejecting the prince. The guest were still there and they could hear Jacque's angry shouts, how he reprimanded her.

And one of the men present took mercy. The kind man was a Major in his middle twenties. He stormed in the room, and for the first time in her life, she saw someone stronger than her father. Her father shouted at him, tried to order him to leave. The shouts of anger turned into pathetic whimpers of pain, when the large man smashed her fathers nose. Then ne had picked her beaten form up and carried her out of her personal hell.

It was as if she could feel her surrogate fathers presence even now, hear how Ironwood yelled "Let her be!" saving her like he did all these years ago.

The presence in her mind disappeared, and she was finally able to escape into the merciful darkness of unconsciousness.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ruby opened her eyes slowly, warily. She felt... she had actually no idea how to describe it. Her vision was somehow different. She stared at the wall left to her. It was one of her room walls, she realized. But it was strange. She could see every crack, every scratch, every little bit of disorder in the wood.

With every breath of air she inhaled exploded a myriad of sensations in her mouth. She smelled the presence of three other living beings in her room.

One had the unmistakable taste of wet dog on it. Based on the sound of it's beating heart, it was most likely Zwei. The other two had significantly different taste and smell. The larger one, who, judging by his breathing currently slept in a seat had the taste of family, the scent of trust. Her brain immediately labeled him as 'pack.'

The second one was different. She also had the smell of family on her, but there was so much more than that. She felt an extreme urge in her entire being to protect this girl and mind twisting desire to be near her. The word "soul mate" flashed through her and she instinctively tightened her tail and wings, that she had wrapped protectively around her.

Wait a second…. WHY THE COOKIE HAD SHE WINGS AND A TAIL?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Where are the others?" Jaune asked Jack. "Are we the first you found?"

He, Martha and Jack stood just outside of the bushes that had obscured the view on his super master hideout. Not that it was a hideout any longer, now that Jack had found it.

"Yeah." Jack answered while he brushed the leaves of his clothing.

"Really, and here I thought that you supposed to be some super trace finder." Jaune said, feeling more than a bit satisfied the older boy didn't manage to find the others.

"Thats not it. I found plenty traces of them, but when I followed them I found nothing, as if they had vanished!" he explained with an annoyed voice.

"Really, hmm maybe they fooled you with fake traces, my grandfather used to do that a lot." the Arc suggested.

"No they did not have the time to….." he abruptly stopped.

Jaune wanted to ask why he had stopped, as suddenly thick metallic stench reached his nose.

 **Well, what could that be? Now I apologize for the delay but I would like to mention that this chapter is five times larger than the average chapter, in fact this chapter is bigger than the entire fanfic prior to this chapter combined. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, tell me praise or criticism in the reviews and help so to improve this fanfic, also should I keep this chapter size?**

 **General Allenwalker out**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 2**

 **Hi folks, nice seeing you again. I hope you are all well. Now it´s time for the next chapter of Drakiden Ruby.**

Ultimate Kuuga: **I´ll do my best. Hopefully the size of this chapter is sufficient.**

Merendinoermiliano: **Well…..**

hiddenshadowlord: **That´s gonna be explained later**

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"So." Ruby said, scratching her head with one of her claws.

"Me and Yang were attacked by some Monster and that Monster did something to, that led to me growing, well, all of this?" she asked and gestured at her body. She still could not fully believe, what she had just heard.

After she woke up and realizing, that she had changed, she overreacted a bit. A bit in the sense of her letting out a screech, that had been probably heard by people miles away.

The next half hour had she clutched her ears in agony, screaming louder than a banshee, that was giving birth to a child had really, really hurt her ears. Even now, while she was talking to her Dad and Sister, her ears did strange things.

She could hear everything, the constant beating of their hearts, the blood, that was pumped through their veins. It was weird and it made Ruby for some reason hungry.

Well, after her ears had stopped aching, Yang and Taiyang spoke with her, or to be more exact her sister had a complete breakdown, sobbing and apologizing to her. She only came down, when Ruby reached out and pulled her into a tight hug.

That had in itself been strange. The moment when she had touched her sister a myriad of emotions had exploded in her. Shame, overwhelming regret, self hatred had flowed through her and yet it hadn´t been her feelings.

She had nudged her forehead against Yangs shoulder and these feelings slowly disappeared while the blond girl hugged her back, her tears running down her cheeks.

Ruby was slightly annoyed to noticed, that, whatever that monster had done to her, had apparently not made her taller. She got two wings, a tail, scales, that covered nearly her entire body, better eyes and hearing, it hadn´t caused her to grow even one centimeter.

She was even able to taste the presence of people and animals, when she breathed in.

Anyway after that her Dad had explained what had happened and Ruby could still barely believe it.

She pinched herself for the about hundredth time today and yeah she wasn´t dreaming.

" **So I am a** **Drakid now? Will I now always look and sound like this?"**

Ruby, as well as everyone else in the room flinched, when she spoke. Even Zwei winced. That was another thing. Her voice.

What had once been a cute tone was twisted, without her having control over it to a deep seated bass, that sounded really mean, before changing back again. Alone hearing it, sent shivers down of the spines of the human and the Branwen in the room, activating flight instincts in both of them.

"No you won´t!" Taiyang answered fast and with a steady voice. "It is definitely not permanent!"

"You are lying." Ruby whispered quietly. "Mum told me, that people who lie have a louder heartbeat."

"Oh, did, did she really say that?" He asked and frowned, when Ruby and Yang nodded, the later also glaring at him for lying to Ruby.

It seemed as if Yang wanted to say something, but she was interrupted by a truly deafening growl, that originated from her little sister.

Said girl pressed her hands against her stomach and whined and seconds later a similar, but not as loud growl, erupted from Yangs digestive systems.

"Oh right you two must be close to starving! I will immediately make you two something to eat!"Taiyang exclaimed, stood up and went to the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So the door is fixed..." a loud crack of the demolished door crashing down, undermined his words and he saw (slightly annoyed) how his two daughter exchanged knowing looks. He did not care what they, Qrow, facts or the doctors said; he was a great fixer of stuff.

But even for someone like him, with such special skill in fixing things, repairing what Ruby had left of the door after her tail had been stuck in it had been a challenge.

"So, girls, what do you want?" he asked cheerfully.

"What do we have?" Yang countered with a raspy voice, due to all the crying.

"Eh…." Taiyang slowly looked around. "Bread? Beans, a bit of leftover burger, and em, I guess I can order something?"

Yang glanced at her little sister, who was still holding her belly in hunger, quietly growling.

"Dad, bring me whatever you have! I'll cook!" she exclaimed loudly, but visibly deflated when the action only caused Taiyang, Ruby and Zwei to blankly stare at her.

"Yang, sweetie, since when can you cook? You always hated it, when your moth- I mean Summer persuaded/forced you to cook with her."

Yang's eyes twitched briefly and changed into their glowing blood red version, as she tried her best to imitate her Mom's death stare. It was the guaranteed act she used to cower her husband into submission, whenever he did something ridiculous like a half hour staring contest with Zwei, or trying to beat Druncle Qrow in a drinking game. Or resisting her, like when she ordered him to do something. In other words if he participated in activities, in which he was destined to lose.

Taiyang, who was used to be glared angrily at by terrifying woman, like Glynda, Raven, Summer, when someone ate her cookies (he shivered at the mere thought) Peach (in one of the rare occasions of her being angry) or the possessive girlfriends of lesbians he had accidentally flirted with, did what he always did. Immediately backed down.

"Okay, I'll bring you what we have."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hmm, the situation is pretty fucked up, isn't it?" Qrow said, while looking at Ironwood with his form shivering in rage. He sat in the man's personal car, driven by non other than the good general himself. "It sure is a rare sight, to see you driving yourself."

He could basically hear how the man nearly crushed the steering wheel between his hands. The next moment the vehicle abruptly stopped, and Ironwood let out a swell of violent curses.

"Hard traffic, huh?" Qrow chuckled, before taking his flask out of the jacket and swallowed what was left inside. He shook it a bit to get the last drops out of it and set it down. "There is a liquor shop right of us. Would you mind?"

A sharp left turn the car made threw the Branwen against Peach beside him, who herself let out a startled shriek.

"Dammit! What the hell Jimmy!" he yelled, while entangling himself out of Peach's cleavage. Not that it was an unpleasant place to be, but it was neither time, place nor the right person for that. He was barely sitting straight again when another sharp turn, followed by an abrupt halt of the car, caused his green haired partner to slam against him.

He gently pushed the Paladin off him and sat himself straight again, while looking out of the darkened glasses of the limousine. He sighed, having a slight idea of what was about to come.

"Why did you attack my subordinates? Why did you kill that woman?" James asked, the barely constrained anger clearly visible in his face.

"Short answer, she was holding me back and every minute counts. Plus she was a racist slave owning cunt." he answered, closing his eyes to concentrate on his senses in order to detect any unwelcome guests or listeners nearby. Finding none, he opened his now glowing eyes, a dead serious expression in them. "Do you have your scroll here? I had Peach lost ours. You have to contact the members of the circle. We have an omega situation at hand."

All anger disappeared from the Atlesian's face, and instead made room for shock. Without wasting even a second, Ironwood pulled out what seemed like a normal ring. Holding it up so that Qrow and Peach could also touch the ring, they all concentrated bits of their aura simultaneously into the device.

The car, their surroundings, and they themselves dissolved into nothingness, as a mixture of high tech and magic sent their minds to another location consisting of nothing but darkness, illuminated only by the light of their projections.

More and more other projections appeared each one representing the members of the cycle, the most powerful organization in all of Remnant. The projections showed politicians, the headmasters of the huntsman schools, powerful huntsman, and other important folks.

The table had a clear visible sections; one for the civies, which consisted mostly of politicians, with the notable exception of Professor Polendina, a genius scientist. In another section were the so called special operatives of the circle located, elite huntsman who stood above the law, like himself. Then in the last section were no other but the headmasters of the huntsman academies themselves, together with their individual right hands. (Every headmaster had one, with the exception of Ironwood.)

Immediate concern swelled up inside Qrow when he saw Ozpin and Glynda were missing. It wasn't unusual for him to be absent, as he worked more often on stuff the outer circle didn't need to know. But Glynda normally always attended, so her not being here was a shocker.

He had a pretty good idea for why they weren't present.

"Special Operative Qrow Branwen, what is the reason for this? Why did you declare an Omega case?" boomed the deep voice of the Atlesian chancellor. He had the tendency of being the most arrogant of the four chancellors representing the kingdoms, despite being the one with the least actual power; given how Atlas had remained being an actual kingdom and hadn't become a democracy like Vale or Vacuo.

Coincidentally the chancellor hated his guts, probably because he was a Branwen, one of these dirty animals who raided Mantle during the great war, butchering his grandfather and raping the man's grandmother in the process.

"Simple." Qrow answered. "The old menace has returned. The Drakid are back to haunt this world once again. They are probably slaughtering people as we speak."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jaune hastily stumbled, backing away from the gruesome image before him. He could faintly hear how Jack threw up, and how Martha let out a high pitched scream.

Ellia, one of the other children, hung from the trees before them, impaled on multiple branches with her guts being pulled out and wrapped around the tree. Blood had painted the wood crimson. Jaune felt his food come up his throat, but he did his best to fight the urge to vomit, and closed his eyes looking away.

"Jau…"

The Arc's eyes shot open. He saw Ellia slowly opened her eyes, presenting him two hollow bloody holes.

"Kill me, please…."

The dam broke; Jaune whirled around and puked like he had never before in his life.

He did not know for how long he did that. After every bit of food had left his body, he continued to spew water mixed with digestive fluids, dryly heaving until there was nothing left. He only stooped when he heard something ascended down from the surrounding trees, landing on the ground with a thud. Jaune slowly turned around to it, an insurmountable terror surging through his entire being.

Not twenty meters away from them stood a monster, looking like it came directly out of his worst nightmares. Blood was like red paint sprayed all over it's scaly body. It had wings, a tail, a face that was split by a hellish grin, showing a monstrous set of teeth.

Jaune couldn't move, he couldn't think. He could faintly feel how something warm flowed down his legs.

The next moment the thing disappeared in one impossible fast motion. Jaune could only turn his head to see what it had done. Jack's face was one of incredible shock as it slowly flew through the air, his head separated from his body. He had not even made contact with the ground when it already was upon Martha. She had just enough time to let out a scream, as it's tail wrapped itself around her, raising her in the air direct for it's face.

Jaune didn't know what it was, the disgusting sounds of it biting into his old friends side, or her shrieks and screams, filled with agony, it broke the hold upon on him.

He turned around and ran. He didn't think about it, he just ran.

And he made it exactly ten meters, before something hit him in the back and crashed him into the ground. Pain exploded throughout his entire body. Jaune tried to scream, but his blood filled mouth allowed only a gurgle to escape. He spat it out and tried to get up again, but was promptly pressed against the earth.

Looking up, he saw the reason; The monster, holding one of Martha's arms and casually tearing bits of flesh out of it, stood over the boy while it was pushing him down with it's tail.

Jaune ripped his mouth open to let out one final terrified scream, but no sound came out. Instead he felt something of a sharp pain around his throat. The boy tried to raise his hand to the location of the pain, but he couldn't muster the strength to even make his arm twitch.

A deep feeling of sleepiness crawled through his body, he tried to fight it but to no avail. Slowly his eyelids closed and everything vanished.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Dad, I don't know what that is, but me and Ruby won't eat it." Yang said, while making sure she and her sister kept their distance from the thing Taiyang had created. She already had her doubts about the level of her fathers culinary skills, before she had seen them in action.

Not that she had expected he would produce something edible, that particular hope was lost after the second time her father had set the kitchen on fire. However, she didn't expect him to create new life, because she was fairly sure that...that _thing_ she called a blob just moved.

"What are you talking about?" Taiyang asked, laughing. "That is a perfectly edible meal!"

Six eyes stared blandly at him as the Branwen, Drakid and Corgi took another step back from the abomination, when it made another of it's strangely lifelike wobbles.

"Come on, it may not look like a five star treat, but it has anything needed for you to grow up as strong and attractive like your Daddy! I show you!" He grabbed a fork and jabbed into the things exterior; it let out a sound that Yang really hoped was hot air flowing out and not a shriek.

With some trouble Taiyang managed to extract a bit of the slimy gibberish and put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

"Ugh, see everything is alrigh…" He did not even finish his sentence when his eyes rolled back, and he promptly slumped over. He would have crashed into the blob, but luckily Ruby was able to catch him, before his face could make further contact with the gray goo.

The young girl set him up straight, giving her the perfect window to launch Zwei like a missile against her fathers chest. The kinetic force behind the furry projectile forced the parts of the blob already in him out. And probably broke a couple of his ribs too.

"Okay!" he coughed. "I'll order something online!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Yang, Ruby, Taiyang and Zwei sat in a circle in the middle of the room. "Crisis circles" had been one of Summers idea's. Whenever one of the family had a problem they all would come together and discuss it while looking for the best way to defuse the problem.

They had come together over things like Ruby's cookie obsession. It had been called in by Taiyang who wanted Ruby to eat healthier. Unfortunately for him, Summer was at least as much of a cookie fanatic as her daughter, and completely supported the little red hair in her cookie, milk and strawberries diet.

Other reasons for the crisis circle had been Taiyang's obsession with "fixing" stuff (he was forbidden to ever be "the fixer" again), outside of the bedroom. The last bit had been added by her mother, Yang's own obsession with her hair, (she won!) and Zwei's obsession with female feline faunus.

All these things seemed so petty and insignificant to Yang now, as she shifted slightly close to Ruby while staring at her father. Her sister herself was playing with Zwei, who tried to catch her tail.

"Sooo." The only adult in the room said. "Ruby how are you?"

The Drakid, who playfully flung Zwei in the air after the corgi had finally managed to catch the red end of her tail, turned her head around.

"What do you mean? I'm not hurt anymore." Confusion was clearly visible in her eyes.

"That's great, but how do you feel exactly? What do you feel?"

"Well I'm pretty hungry. And also pretty confused. And …" Ruby stopped mid sentence and set herself straight up. Her face grimaced, and a feral growl left her mouth, startling the others. "Someone's coming!" snarled she with a voice as dark as the night, spreading her wings out and standing up.

"Ruby!" Yang yelled and reached out, her hand gripping her shoulder.

Immediately a myriad of sensations burnt through her. Excitement, confusion, the desire to protect her pack, and most of all hunger. The want to devour the foolish man nearing their house, the man whom she subconsciously felt shivers running down his spine, as each step took him nearer to the door of the wooden building, to his certain bloody and painful end. How he, like a mouse to the cheese of the trap, closed ever the more in to his own doom.

Saliva collected in Yang's mouth as the prey went up the wooden door, excitement exploding in her as he used the clock. She barely noticed Taiyang standing up, leaving the room to take the ordered food of the delivery man.

She wanted to jump the stranger, and rip and tear and eat!

The want to indulge herself in the flesh and agony of her prey was so powerful. But she could not move. Somebody had chained her, someone had dared to render immobile. Her entire attention shifted from the prey, that was now walking away from the house, from her! She fought against the chains that had been laid upon her, but instead of the satisfying sounds of these shattering, they only tightened more and more.

With a frustrated scream she had to give up, helplessly sensing how the prey got away. Her frustration turned into fury as she turned her head towards the one holding her captive, intending to execute hellish revenge against the fool.

"Yang?"

That singled word crossing her brain, muttered by the voice belonging to her most precious, hit the burning rage in her head like a blizzard, erasing it instantly. Being able to see clear again, she saw in the concerned faces of Taiyang and Ruby. The later had her tail wrapped around her, so tight that it was difficult for her to properly breath. Her sister immediately released her and she fell forward coughing and clutching her aching skull.

"What happened?" She managed to ask.

"I would like to know that too." her father said. "When I came in here you were thrashing, salivating and your eyes were changing between blood-red and black. Your sister on the other hand had completely calmed down and was restraining you. By the way Ruby, why were you so ….?" He made a couple of hand gestures, "because of delivery man?"

"I…. I think so." she answered cautiously, as if she wasn't sure of it herself. "It was really weird. I somehow knew, that he was there and …." she stopped.

"And what sweetie? Please answer me honestly, it is really, really important!"

Ruby shifted uneasily, clearly uncomfortable with the question. When her Dad was about to further corner her, Yang intervened. "Dad! Ruby clearly doesn't want to talk about! Can't you let her be?"

Hearing her, Taiyang turned towards the older of his two children with a dead serious look in his eyes.

"No! Yang, Ruby this is important, you have to answer me!" he exclaimed.

Yang flinched for a moment before gathering herself, settling on to a very different answer, but she was stopped when something touched her elbow.

Ruby stood there with her head down, tears in her eyes. "Please stoop fighting. I'll tell."

The two blonds immediately changed their attention to the young Drakid.

"I wanted to eat him. I wanted to hurt him. I …!" Tears ran down her cheeks, as she openly started sobbing. Instinctively Yang reached out and pulled Ruby in a hug. Only moments later Taiyang joined in, and she could feel how Zwei rubbed his face against hers and Ruby's leg.

They remained in that position for five minutes, until Ruby had collected herself enough to continue speaking. "I was about to attack him, but then the desire to eat him suddenly disappeared, it was like someone had sucked it out of my mind. I noticed that Yang was behaving strangely, she was getting angry and her eyes changed. I was a bit scared, but something inside me told me to embrace her with my tail around her, so I did. She was struggling so I had to embrace her harder. Than you came and she began to calm down."

"Is that all?" Taiyang asked, visibly calming down when Ruby nodded. "Well fine then. I've got food for you!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jaune slowly pushed himself through the bushes, fighting for every agonizing breath. The air he inhaled sent pain throughout his body, unlike anything the young Arc had ever experienced before. It was as if his throat was equally burning, it felt as if he swallowed clouds of glass shards that shredded his throat.

He did not know how long he'd been unconscious, how much time had passed since the monster had killed his friends, had ripped his throat open, but it was already dark, for which he was thankful. He didn't have to see the mutilated bodies of his dead friends again.

The thought on what had happened made him sick, but he fought it down instantly. Jaune already had found out the suffering that puking caused, how it made the pain of normal breathing heavenly. He had also found on the same occasion out that he couldn't scream. He couldn't talk, cry or whimper. No matter what he tried, no sound left his mouth.

He felt dizzy as he stumbled and crawled rather than actually walking. But every time he broke down he stood up again. Always setting one foot before the other one.

Jaune ducked under one branch, carefully. Scratches littered the whole of the young boys form, but he barely felt it. He didn't know for how long he had walked, he didn't know where he walked to, if it was the path to his home or not. But he didn't care. Only one thought resided in his mind.

To get away. Away from the tragedy he survived somehow. Away from the monster responsible for it. Away. Just away.

"Jaune!"

It was as if he had heard something. Panic surged through him as he turned around, trying to run in a different direction.

Pain exploded through his body when he slipped on something, maybe a lose rock or a wet leaf. He attempted to get up, put he only slipped out again, with his head hitting a rock or something this time.

He felt how something gripped him and pulled him up. In frantic panic the boy kicked out and scratched, his mouth opened in silent screams.

"JAUNE! STOPP! IT`S ME!" a familiar voice yelled. Recognizing the voice Jaune slowly rose his head, despite the motion sending agony through his throat. He saw not the grotesque features of the creature which had tormented him, but instead the face of his father, Jim Senarius Arc.

Tears streamed down his cheeks with an expression of immense relief on him, the man suddenly pulled his son in a tight embrace and began to openly weep. Dumbfounded, Jaune only cautiously realized he was safe, that his dad had come and would bring him home. And then he realized he also starting to cry.

Jim Arc wasn't embarrassed to have tears flooding down his cheeks. He had spent the last four hours searching for his son, together with the other men of the village. They had gone into the forest, annoyed that the children had once again been too long out in the forests. They hadn't been concerned about them, as the surroundings of Arlington were free of Grimm, something that he personally was responsible for. They had even joked over how they would deal with their respective kids.

This behavior stopped when they found the first body. He didn't know who the child was, it was completely unrecognizable. What had once been a lively, innocent child, filling the world with laughter, who didn't know about the darkness and evil, had been reduced to nothing but flesh. His bones had been smashed, his limbs had been torn of, his face… his face had been eaten.

Judging from the blood smears he had been alive for most of the torture.

After finding these remains they had hasted searching everywhere. And it took them not too long to find the others. He would never forget the screams of the men, whom he had known for years, decades even, men with who had grown up with, people with who he had celebrated, when they found their dead children.

But all that was nothing compared to what they had seen back there.

Ellicia, the daughter of a farmer called Karl, had been wrapped with her own guts to a tree. The butchered remains of Jack and Martha laying around it. But the absolute worst had been Ellicia had been still alive.

He knew it wasn't supposed to be impossible. The wounds, the blood loss, the shock of the pain, the girl should have been dead. But she wasn't. The scene had occurred when her father had rushed to the girl would forever haunt his nightmares. The girl had pleaded for death, begging to be killed. And Karl, who had never been able to resist his daughters wishes, who had always played with her, had fulfilled that wish.

For safety reasons, every one of them went armed into the forests. Hearing his daughters cries, the man rose his pistol and shot her in the head. He did it while letting out a scream that sounded more as if it belonged to an animal than a human, before sticking his gun into his mouth and pulling the trigger.

It had been insanity. They had found everyone who were missing, all were dead. Only Jaune wasn't among the violated corpses. Jim Arc had been close to desperation when he noticed one smear of blood that led away from the carnage. Said smear ended after a few meters, but it was one spark of hope for him. A spark he followed like a madman.

With the euphoria of finding his son alive slowly fading away, his head cleared enough to inspect his boy. His clothes were torn, some hanging only in shreds of his body. The fabric of his white shirt was red from blood. His throat and nearly his entire chest were equally painted. And although tears were spilling out of his eyes, no sound came out of his mouth.

"Jaune, speak to me! Where are you injured? Where does it hurt?" Jim frantically asked, the concerns now drowning out all other thoughts.

Nothing. Only continued sharp breaths. A terrible theory forming in his mind, Jim immediately started to feel his sons throat with his fingers.

"Impressive!" A sinister voice behind him stated, causing the Arc to whip around. Through the bushes of the forest came a creature, that's mere appearance caused every drop of blood inside the body of the Arc Patriarch to freeze in terror.

Clear visible in the beam of his flashlight stood a distinctively humanoid reptilian being. Splattered over it's scales was the red of blood, fresh blood. It reeked of death, it's very existence sent signals of sickness through the man, who recognized what it truly was.

"I must say, I didn't expect the boy to be able to survive me ripping his throat open. He must have a pretty large Aura, to not only survive that but to regenerate his flesh to that extent!" The Drakid let out a laugh that sent shivers down the Arc's back. "But I am equally glad that you are still alive, it will give me the possibility to recreate the art that vermin had the gall to destroy!"

Every muscle in Jim's body tensed upon hearing that.

"Art!? The slaughter and torture of children! You call that art?!" He screamed, the fear and terror that he felt a moment ago vanishing. It was replaced by pure, feral, primal, rage.

"Oh yes." The Drakid giggled. "You know I was raised listening to the stories of the Elder in awe, stories of the great works they did to humans. Of how they changed their flawed bodies and minds into something beautiful, into true art."

He gestured with one of his clawed hands in the direction of the calamity.

"This is my first true hunt. I was too excited, too eager, and I killed most of this children too fast. Some I just wounded too badly, they died before I could inject them with my curse. Others couldn't handle the curse so they died from that. But than I managed to make that one girl, one of the last I captured, into something decent."

His features of joy turned into an expression of anger.

"I had planned to present her to the others when they arrived as a trophy of my achievements! And this worm had the nerve to destroy my creation! Furthermore, he even killed himself so I was unable to properly punish him for doing that! But it is alright. Some of the most magnificent of our race managed to break their victims to such extent that they would freely devour their own kins flesh and drink their blood. And here I have the chance to do that -"

Only his fast reaction allowed him to dodge Crocea Mors, cutting through the darkness of the night like silver lightning.

Jumping back into the darkness of the night, he felt something akin to faint pain. Raising his claws to his face, he was shocked to find a swallow cut.

"Oh? Your sword is able to cut me? How?" he demanded, surprised. "It doesn't look like a cursed weapon."

"Because it isn't." Jim answered, who narrowed his eyes in an attempt to locate the monster. He dropped his flashlight when he had drawn Crocea Mors, and he faced an opponent smart enough to stay outside of it's still active light beam.

"This is Crocea Mors, the sword of justice. It was wielded by Siegfried Arc, the founder of my family line. He used it to kill countless numbers of your kind, and he even fought with some of the Alpha on equal footing! The curse that shields your hide will not even slow this weapon down!" Pride filled Jim while shouting this. This weapon had been used to defeat monsters far stronger than the one confronting him right now. It didn't stand a chance! Confident in his own skills he readied himself for the Drakid's next move. But instead of an assault he was only hit by frantic laughter.

"So this is one of the legendary blades?" The monster sounded as if he was rather more fascinated than concerned over that fact.

"Indeed, 'the holy Crocea Mors'. That is clearly a grand weapon, but what use has it in the hands of peasant who is unable to utilize even it's most basic abilities, and just swings it around. You use the blade as as if it was the sharper version of a club!"

The words, each thickened with pure hate, sent chills through Jim's whole being, but he did his best to not let them get to him. Instead he tried to figure where the reptile would attack next. The realization where that would be transformed the chills into blank horror, and he whirled around screaming his son's name.

It was as if everything suddenly moved in slow motion, as he saw how the monsters was rushing towards Jaune, who barely realized in what the situation was. Seeing how he wouldn't be able to make it in time, Jim concentrated his strength on his arm and did the only thing he could do to save his boy.

He threw Crocea Mors with all his might at the Drakid, just as it was about to reach it's prey. The blade missed Jaune only by centimeters, and impacted directly on the face of the creature, and abruptly was blocked by it's aura.

Despite not damaging the Drakid, having a very sharp object launched against it's eyes caused it to flinch back, allowing Jim to close the gap between them and to tackle it.

"JAUNE RUN!" he screamed, while trying his best to push the Drakid back. He could only hope the ten year old boy listened to him.

The scaled fist that smashed into his solar plexus quickly drew his attention to the problem before him; Jim's Aura blocked the attack, but the force behind it still drove the oxygen out of his lungs. He barely managed to block a second strike targeting his left lung, while rapidly backing away in an attempt to dodge the his opponents monstrous fangs, which continued to snap out at him.

Channeling immense amounts of Aura at the palms of his hands, causing them to glow, Jim lashed out, ramming both of them into the arms of the Drakid. It managed to form with his two limbs a cross and shielded itself, as the originally intended goal of Jim's attack had been it's face.

The moment Jim's palm thrust connected with the Drakid's Aura, an enormous blast of kinetic energy was released. The power behind the elder Arc's Aura thrust was an unstoppable force that met in the curse and Aura shielded arms of the Drakid, an unmovable object. The power broke through the beast's Aura, traveled through it's body and finally went into the ground, causing an explosion of dirt and whatever vegetation had been there, as the earth was far less sturdy than the two combatants exchanging blows.

Both were enveloped in a cloud of dust and used the momentarily distraction to separate from each other. Concentrating Aura in his eyes, Jim could faintly see how the Drakid shook its arms, the limbs trembling slightly.

'So your curse can stop any attack from penetrating your skin, but it lets brunt force behind it strikes through?' he thought. 'Still if that only made his arms vibrate, than I am in serious trouble.'

The Arc had used a seventh of his Aura in this attack. It would have been devastating if it had only been the seventh of the standard huntsman reserves, but as an Arc, Jim possessed an almost surreal amount of Aura. Any normal being, even an Aura-shielded one who successfully blocked that, would have seen it's bones and internal organs turned to mush.

But the monster was undeterred.

"Is that the best that you can do?" The Drakid taunted. "If that is the case, the throwing your little knife at me was a serious mistake. What purpose did saving that little shit serve, if it seals your fate? I will catch him anyway after I am finished with you."

Hearing these words, the blond did something that the humanoid reptile had not expected. He started laughing.

"Ha, everything I have?" his tone suddenly turned deadly cold, as chilled as the eternally icy deserts of Mantle. "Who do you think I am? I am Jim Senarius Arc, tenth Patriarch of the Arc family, the wielder of Crocea Mors! And as such I swear, that for the crimes and atrocities you committed, I will kill you and free the world of the evil that your kind are."

While saying this Jim closed his eyes, as every millimeter of his body started glowing in a bright yet unholy light promising death, as the huntsman channeled more than half of his vast Aura reserves through his body. Clasping his hands together, the huge amount of energy took the shape of a broadsword, apparently created out of pure light, forming in his hands.

Separating his right arm from the Aura construct, he reached out deep into his soul and called out. A second blade emerged around his right, a blade not made out of Aura, but steel and adamantium. Holding Crocea Mors with his right and the Aura sword in his left, he slowly started to advance towards his enemy.

All traces of arrogance and smugness had vanished from it's features, and had instead been replaced by a fierce scowl.

"And you think you have won just because you've mastered some of the most basic of Crocea Mors techniques?" it countered, while himself now falling in a state of deep concentration.

"Whatever you are planning to do I WON`T LET YOU!" Jim roared, his Aura reinforced legs propelling him forward. Swinging both his swords, he aimed to decapitate the monster in one mighty attack.

Flapping with his wings, the Drakid shot into the sky gracefully, evading the lethal weapons. Then it promptly screamed in surprised pain when Crocea Mors impaled itself into his side. Having lost his rather weak Aura to the Arc's previous attack, nothing stopped it's downward trajectory after being thrown by it's owner a second time. The weapon bit through scales, flesh, guts and organs, inflicting a grievous wound. The Drakid dropped with the grace of a falling rock towards the ground.

The monster had barely touched the earth, but Jim was already upon him.

Filled with savage rage, Jim slashed and hacked at his opponent with all his strength. The Drakid brought his arms up with black energy swirling around them, expanding in some kind of shield. It was a futile effort.

Jim's sword shattered it in three hits, before the blade made contact with the Drakid's body. The Aura construct lacked Crocea Mors ability to cut the monster's scales, but that didn't matter. Swinging the sword as if it was a sledgehammer, the Arc used nothing but brutal force to batter the Drakid to death. One swift kick to the shaft forced Crocea Mors out of his body, while equally slicing large parts of his underbelly up.

In one last desperate attempt to halt the beat down, the Drakid lashed out and caught the glowing blade with his mere claws. Again the weapon proved incapable of penetrating the scales protecting every inch of the monsters body, but the pure power resting behind it's swing was suffice to break three of its fingers.

The Drakid ignored that however, and pulled his opponent towards him, who recognized the threat a second too late. Blood splattered through the air as fangs ripped through a spent Aura, too exhausted to offer real protection.

Arms shot up and tried to push the monster back, but with the power and the will of an injured animal with it's back pressed against a wall, the Drakid sank his teeth only deeper into Jim's left shoulder. Bringing up the hand that was the least destroyed, he rammed his claws into the huntsman. That last act did not only seriously wounded the huntsman, it also allowed the Drakid to pour what he had left of his curse into him, paralyzing his prey.

Feeling the Arc slowly go limp and stopped resisting, the Drakid finally drew his teeth out of the huntsman, but not without taking a large bite out his shoulder. He ate slowly, savoring the taste of the flesh the Drakid had fought so hard for. Swallowing, he grinned down at his bested foe.

"You know, it is too bad." he stopped to inhale sharply. "You're too dangerous, I'll have to kill you. I want you to know" another sharp breath "your death wears the name Serena."

Slinging his tail around the Arc, he rose him up. "Don't worry about your son. I will keep him as my pet." He assured with a barbaric grin. "But where will I get food for him? Tell me, what else on family does he have?" Extreme satisfaction filled him when he saw the huntsman's eyes widen in terror.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. Even if you succeeded in killing me, it wouldn't have made a difference. You would only have saved yourself a few weeks." The huntsman was now directly before him. Intense hunger and desire began to drench all other sensations out and Serena ripped his maw open, fully intending to give in to those desires.

But it wasn't meant to happen.

Pain flashed through his legs and suddenly his left knee gave in, causing him to fall towards the ground. Serena could only turn his head in surprise towards Jaune, wielding a blood covered Crocea Mors, rammed the sword through his chest.

Pulling Crocea Mors out, Jaune stabbed again and again into the monster, splashing it's blood all over him in the process. His mouth was wide open, as if to scream, but no sound left the boy. After the twelfth stab, the sword slipped out of Jaune's hands, but as if he hadn't realized the weapon was missing, Jaune continued the stabbing motion.

"Jaune!" His fathers weak voice ripped him out of the haze.

The boy turned around, tears streaming down his face as he ran to his father. Without hesitation he embraced him.

"Jaune… you … have… to … go!" Jim told him, with a lot of difficulty. "Please… go …. to your … mother! She'll… send help!"

Jaune only shook his head, gripping tighter.

"Jaune … you have to … I … can hold out.. for lo-!" Jim's plea was interrupted as he turned to puke out a large amount of blood.

He tried to push his son away, he did not want for him to be further traumatized by having him watch how he died.

"Jaune, please." he tried, before coughing up even more blood. Jaune only tightened his hug. Jim slowly closed his eyes.

He could faintly see a light and how his pain diminished.

Slowly opening his eyes again, he laid eyes on the source of said light.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 **Hey guys sorry for the long delay. I had to put up with quite something so I had no time to update. Mistakes are now taken care of and the explanation for the long lack of update is now at the end of the chapter.**

 **Now to those who took their time to review this and the last chapter.**

 **Ultimate Kuuga: Well, Yang has already begun to change, the Question is rather will she be completely replaced by Eagle.**

 **Merendinoemilonado: It´s nice to hear that, happy birthday, don´t worry you won´t have to wait as long for the next chapter.**

 **Grimm Slayer Garm: Thank you. Thank you so very much for this review. You made excellent points, all correct, which really made me look back at what i´ve wrote. I took care of everything you mentioned and I hope this is noticeable in this chapter. If you have anymore critic to this story, please tell it to me. Your review was incredible helpfull**

What was once Ruby, leaving the name behind along with her non existent humanity, flew over such beautiful scenery. An inferno of unimaginable heat, caused by the Atlesian battleship crashing into the civilians housing complex then detonating in a tremendous explosion, ravaging defenders and refugees alike.

She took special glee in this atrocity, purring to the marvelous sounds filling the choking sky. The screams of the crushed yet still living victims, the cries of the ones burning, the whining of the children, coated in the remains of their mothers and fathers.

She did not intended this when she had assaulted the ships bridge, slaughtering the captain along with her entire staff, but the fact this was unintentional made it all the more delicious. Fate was just too kind sometimes.

She observed how dozens of her brethren rushed through the breach in the defenses, killing anything and everything they came across. They were accompanied by hundreds of cursed humans; these animals had been given the gift of the curse after they were captured by their masters, but managed to impress them enough to let them live.

She giggled. Well that was what the Drakid told them. In truth they had just been full already, most likely by their new toys, friends, and relatives.

But then she detected something that only livened her up more. A group of prey, huntsman, and soldiers, had reformed in defensive positions, and had some real success in holding off the cursed and the Drakid.

Fully spreading her ash wings (normally they were ash black, but they had been painted red by the bodily fluids of her prey), she went into a dive, plummeting directly into the ring of desperate defenders, splattering in all directions those who were unfortunate enough to stand in her path. The men and women around her were battle hardened veterans, and instead of screaming and running away while her sheer presence corroded their minds, they suppressed the agony and terror shooting up their spines to open fire on her.

But they could have been throwing paper arrows at her for all the good it did; of the countless lasers, dust rounds, and rockets shot at her, none of them had even the slightest chance of scratching her, let alone wounding her in any meaningful way.

Ignoring the hailstorm of projectiles and energy pelting her hide, she rose her left hand to concentrate a massive amount of the curse. It manifested as a ball of the purest darkness, which quickly expanded to form a huge scythe, whose blackness seemed to consume the light itself. The soldiers, who still continued their relentless attack, who were unable to see the futility of continuing, unable to realize that they were too weak to do anything but to **DIE!**

They never even saw it coming, she moved too fast for their eyes to follow. Her scythe carved through aura and armor as if neither were present, spraying blood, organs, meat, and brain matter in a marvelous shower through the air, all while she moved through the rows of troops, only visible as black flash slicing through them like they were nothing but wheat.

That was until she meet upon a lone target, who didn't die in one hit.

In surprise she recognized that her scythe was stuck halfway inside a man's torso, with him being able to halt his own demise by bring his weapon, some kind of staff covered in spikes, down in time.

"NOW SYLLYA! KILL IT!" The huntsman screamed with an irritable high pitched voice, probably a result from her halving his guts.

Turning her head around, she saw another human, a female nearing with (after the standards of lowlifes) very high speed, accelerated by what appeared to be rocket engines, while pointing a lance which also possessed rockets engines. For a moment she was fixated on the arrangement rather than the danger.

While she wondered how this kind of weapon did not also burn its owner, she transformed the scythe into a ball of spikes, impaling the first huntsman in the lungs, spleen, heart, and stomach. At the sane time, she moved her left hand to where the lance would impact, while letting go of her transformed scythe to sever the mans head from his shoulders with one curse enhanced slash of her claws.

The huntress, named Syllya, had barely time to notice this as her weapon smashed into Ruby's hand, and the momentum of her own enhanced speed forced it out of her grip as the Drakid didn't even twitch from the attack, slamming the woman against her.

She just ripped her mouth open and bit into the huntresses right side of the skull, breaking through her critically weakened aura to tear her ear off. The brutal act was enough to rip open parts of her temple, leaving the brain open to see.

The woman screamed as she tried to punch her, but Ruby easily captured her fist, and twisted the limb to such an extent that her wrist shattered. Simultaneously she wrapped her tail around the huntresses waist before pulling. Her screams rose to an insane crescendo that could be heard by everyone, even through the sounds of battle and slaughter. All the survivors turned their eyes to the huntress, crying helplessly in the Drakid's grasp.

While chewing on the remains of Syallya's ear, Ruby inserted a bit of her curse in the woman's ruined wrists, preventing them from being ripped off while increasing the force with which she pulled ever so slowly.

All fighting and combat between those who had somehow still survived ceased, and they all viewed the scene in terror -or in case of Ruby's pack- in awe.

The woman's yelling reached an insane degree, especially frightening in the ghastly silence that came over the decided battle. Ruby could faintly detect how multiple humans stormed towards her, but all the fools were intercepted and killed by her pack, their weakened defensive formation soon following them in death. Seeing that, the other soldiers and huntsman who had all rounded up in protective circles and entrapments, could only stare as the huntress's arms were ripped out of their sockets.

But even when that finally happened, Ruby was not done with her. Grabbing her at her shoulders, she infused more of the curse into the victim, denying her the mercy of either dying or falling unconscious; the nefarious power sealed the gruesome wounds shut, while only enhancing the agony and forcing her awake.

Ruby's lips widened to bestial smile as she fully opened her completely black eyes, the unsettling orbs lacking a pupil or an iris. Pulling harder and harder, the woman screams grew in a fever pitch with foam forming around her mouth.

Multiple loud cracks filled the air, and the foam around the huntresses mouth turned red as her vocal cords ruptured. Only moments later gave the lower half of Syllya gave in, and was ripped of together with several ropes of guts.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Letting out a scream, Ruby surged up from her sleeping position. Sweat covered her entire body, from the tips of her wings to the end of her tail. She was breathing heavily, her heart hammering in her chest.

She frantically looked around, while images and memories of the dream flooded her mind. An intense feeling of sickness and dread overtook her sense, as she recalled just what she had done in her dream, and how much she had enjoyed doing them.

Especially the scene with that huntre-

Unable to finish her thought, she bowled over and threw up. What had she – _WHY_ _had she done that?!_ And to her rising confusion, she felt the disgust of her actions shrinking the more she thought about. Instead it was replaced with something akin to interest.

"Ruby?" Hearing her sister calling out cut through the odd sensation taking control of her, and the unseemly interest she felt over her imaginary massacre immediately turned into horror again, as she had realized she woke up her sister.

"Yang..." she mewled, barely audible. Ruby stared at the blonde's form, who arose cautiously from her bed while searching for the light switch; it was a necessity, as she lacked Ruby's excellent night vision.

She wanted nothing more than to rush over to her sister, and hug her until all memories of that horrid dream were gone and erased. But as she began to move the picture of the blonde girl before her, who had just succeeded in detecting the on switch for the light, she was swiftly surprise by the scene of the dream; where a much more mature, taller version of her feasted on a similar woman with blonde hair.

Backing away with closed eyes, she started to cry, her entire form trembling. She couldn't – could she? No that woman had looked nothing like Yang and she was named Syllya! She suddenly felt the fabric of the bed she'd been sleeping on slip away, as she reached to the end of the sheets.

Letting out surprised half choked yelp she fell back – and was abruptly halted mid fall. Opening her eyelids she saw Yang, who had jumped forward just as she had slipped, and grabbed her left hand. Pulling her up with some difficulty, Ruby was confronted with her sister's concerned eyes staring directly into her own, and maybe directly into her soul too.

"You're crying." she whispered, bringing up her free hand to wipe the tears off the smaller girl's face, her actions gentle. "Why?"

Hearing that, together with Yang's face showing nothing but concern and care for her, Ruby broke down.

"Yang…. I..Dream, .. killing… M-monst-ter..-" she stammered, slumping as she openly cried. The sense of dread she awoke with was returning; what would she think of her if she told her the details of her dream? Yang would be be terrified and frightened of her, no doubt about it. Somehow the mere though of that being the case made her more afraid and disturbed than anything in her dreams.

She froze however, as Yang pulled her in a tight embrace. Ruby froze completely, she stopped trembling, crying, even thinking. The sickening presence within her was pushed away, to be replaced by an intense warmth, one which filled her entire being from toe to tail. Despite the heat she didn't feel burned in the least.

"Shhhh." went her sister, cradling her tightly. "It's okay, it was just a dream, it's gone now and it wasn't real. That thing in your dreams, whatever it was, won't get you here." Breaking the hug, she looked at her. "And you want to know why? Because I am here. I'll protect you no matter what!"

Ruby felt a smile forcing its way to her mouth, together with an immense wave of relieve drowning away all the worry within her. Pulling her back in the embrace, she whispered a "thank you" with a voice so light that it was almost silent.

They both remained in that pose for several minutes, until Ruby had finally fully calmed down.

"Do you want to sleep with me again?" asked Yang as they separated. "I promise I won't let any nightmares to you."

Ruby shifted uneasy upon hearing the question. "Are you sure? What if I again push you out of the bed like last time? I am to big with my wings and tail, we won't have enough space in one bed." she pointed out, unsure about the suggestion. She and Yang had slept together for the past couple days, ever since they'd woken up. Unfortunately the pair had to put an end to that. Yang kept being thrown out when Ruby turned around while sleeping. They had then settled with just sleeping in the same room.

"Of course I am okay with it." Yang assured, smiling. "Now if you could help your big ol' sis with moving this bed since your strong one here, it would be really appreciated."

Giggling, Ruby slung her tail around to raise the bed up, before setting it down directly beside her own. Seeing that, Yang stood blinking for a couple of seconds, before she began to laugh as well. She switched the light off and threw herself on the makeshift double bed, patting on the place beside her, quietly demanding for Ruby to lay herself down as well.

Doing just that, Ruby remained impassive for a moment until her sister rolled around and snuggled herself against her. Sneezing a bit from all the blonde hair in her face, she shortly observed the sleeping girl before also giving in to the sleep.

Her last thoughts before shutting down was marvel over the heavenly feeling in her chest, providing her sorely needed comfort.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 _Opening her eyes again, Ruby found herself still in her bedroom, but something was different. She didn't feel the usual sluggishness that accompanied waking up. But that was not the only thing._

 _Her hearing, her vision, her sense of smell and taste; she felt as if all were dulled, far less acute than before. She discovered to her surprise that she was wrapped in a blanket, something she'd stopped doing after her transformation._

 _Suddenly something to the left of her moved, causing the girl to shriek and bolt out of the bed, fully expecting some kind of monster or other terrible thing to appear._

 _But instead, Yang was there. A weirdly glowing Yang who was currently pulling a quite convincing gaping fish imitation as she stared at her. Giggling in relief, Ruby took the opportunity to finally tease her back._

" _What're you looking at Yang? You gonna catch flies if you …" mid sentence she glanced down on herself, and began to mimic her sister's expression._

 _She… she…she was normal. Her belly, her feet, her arms, they all were back in their normal state. No scales, no pointy claws. Twisting her head, she looked down her backside and found both wings and tail missing. Instead there was only normal skin._

 _Oh, and she was also stark naked…._

 _Crying out she jumped back into the bed and covered herself in the blanket, inadvertently pulling it from Yang away revealing her bare form as well, causing her to shriek and tighten her grip on the blanket to protect her from the cold._

 _Ruby, who'd gotten used to be able to overpower her big sis with her little finger in the last days, found herself uncomfortably helpless against her immodest sister…_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Yawning loudly and presenting her large, terrifying fangs to the world announced Ruby waking up. Feeling something soft beside her (maybe her pillow?) she wrapped her arms, tail and wings around the warm mass, squeezing her face against it tightly.

She didn't feel like opening her eyes, she had a wonderful dream and wanted nothing more than continue dreaming. She'd been a normal girl again with normal feet and back. No scary claws, teeth or slitted eyes.

Yang had been there too, talking and playing with her. It had been wonderful. That dream…

" _It was more than a dream though, wasn't i_ t?"

Ripping her eyes open, she separated herself from her yellow, hairy, very Yangy pillow, protectively laying her wings over her body to shield from potential attack. Ruby couldn't see anyone, and after concentrating on her ears and nose, she sensed no one beside her and her sister so who-

" _It's me Rubes!"_ This time the message was connected with an image of Yang. Turning her head around, she looked at her sister and saw her with one eye open, smiling at her.

"Yang, ehm… did you just talk to me in my head?" she hesitantly asked, unsure if that was actually the case. To check if she was still dreaming, Ruby poked herself with one of her claws, only to wince at the pain.

" _Seems so._ " answered the blonde, still without a single sound. _"It's like in our dream."_

"Wait, the you in that dream was actually you? Really?"

"Yes." The last word she finally spoke out loud, rising up to untangle herself from the smaller girl. Despite the strangeness of the situation, she seemed remarkably calm.

"So how is that possible? Us merging dreams and you now talking inside my head?" asked Ruby, deeply confused.

"I don't know" Yang told her, "but I think these developments are not as bad as some of the other changes that happened to use in the last time, do you think so?"

Ruby could only nod to that. The dream they shared wasn't unpleasant by any definition, and Yang talking to her mentally without a single peep felt more cool than weird. Especially when she thought of the horrible dream she had before that one.

Suddenly excitement shot through her body, and she bolted up straigyt. "Yang do you think that I'll be also able to do that?"

"No idea. Let's find out."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

" _What's on the menu for breakfast today?"_

Looking around, Yang saw her sister sitting on the specialized chair, made just for her by Taiyang. Strangely enough, for as bad as he was when it came to fixing stuff, he was very, very skilled at making something completely new. Through the hole specifically made for her tail, she had slung a powerful rope of hide and muscle around her sisters ankle.

After some experimenting, they found out they both could talk, and to some extent read each others minds. But to be able to do that, they had to touch each other. Without contact, nothing happened.

Ruby had thought they had some kind of superpower semblance, like her moms death glare, but a short test with Zwei revealed they couldn't do it with others. Or at least not with animals. Her baby sis wanted to immediately tell their dad, but she had managed to convince her to keep this a secret. A thing only for them alone, no one else could know.

"Well I have normal bread with bacon for me and a fresh chicken for you."

Ruby instantly lightened up. "With the blood and the feathers?"

"Yes, it even has still most of it's inner organs."

"Yay!"

Yang smiled upon seeing her sister's childish delight, and hastily backed away as she tore her food. In order to avoid her sandwich being splattered with blood, it was a good idea.

They both sat there eating more or less silently. She observed her sister devouring the bird raw, without really caring about the mess she was making. Bloody feathers sailed through the air, spreading all over the dining table. Yang sighed, fully aware she was the one who would have to clean up after Ruby was finished.

Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the clothing, Ruby and Zwei, all the 'Summer Jobs' had fallen on her. Not that her Dad had ordered her to do them or something like that. On the contrary, he tried to do it all by himself, something that combined with what little time he had led to him overworking himself. Not to mentioned that for all the love she had for her father, Yang couldn't deny that he was a bad cook. Like really bad. Not bad as in overcook the soup or burn the sausage bad but more bringing the cabbage pudding (it wasn't supposed to be a pudding he claimed) to life.

So she intervened and (after some failed baking) quickly became the cook of the family. She had to, since her dad was clearly not made for the job, and they couldn't just hire a maid or chef to take care of the issue for an obvious, very scaly, and constantly hungry reason.

A reason that seemed to have finished eating.

"Wow Rubes, I know you're a fast one but that was …." searching for the right word, she stared at the pitiful remians of her sisters meal, reduced to spilled blood and feathers which slowly floated to the ground, all while Ruby smiled at her with a glowing smile. "…. impressive."

"Well sis, how about you clean yourself up and than go watch a bit TV?" she suggested, glancing at the clock. "If I remember it correctly your favorite series begins in a couple of minutes. You don't want to miss it, do you?"

She laughed internally at how Ruby perked up, her eyes also razing to the clock, a look of realization dawning on her face. "Oh yeah Red vs Blue! I can't wait to see what caboose does ne- erk!"

In her excitement she had jumped up to storm towards the TV, only to fall on her face when Yang stepped on her tail.

"Young lady, you didn't just really intend to lay yourself on the couch while you're looking like that, did you?" she scolded, laying on her best stern Summer look. Despite it being nowhere near as powerful in freezing Ruby or Taiyang, it still succeeded in halting her little sister.

Said girl pouted while her big sister pulled a piece of cloth out of her dress pockets and began to wipe all blood and food leftovers from her face and chest. She just managed to clean most of her before her captive slid out of her clutches, and flashed off to the living room. Yang looked behind her with a smile, before turning around to inspect the chaos she left behind in the kitchen, and the earlier expression was replaced by a sigh.

She shoved the groan aside and went to work.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Two hours later she allowed herself to fall down on the nearest seat. She checked her now blindingly clean environment with approval; the chicken feathers were all collected and tossed into a trash bag, every single bit of splattered blood washed away, the dishes cleaned, and their separate beds were made.

 _Man, I never gave mom enough credit for doing all this stuff_ , she thought while standing up stretching her aching back. "I would've never thought all that stuff would be such a drag to do! How did she manage to do it while also being a huntress?"

She then heard Ruby's light laugh, free from all the hardship that occurred to her a couple of weeks ago, and her aches, pains, and exhaustion disappeared instantly. It was replaced by a sensation of happiness and fulfillment.

She did not really remember what kind of dreams she had, but when she awoke she was always covered in sweat. This had been the case for the last week, which meant that she was dog-tired. Falling back on her bolstered seat she slowly closed her eyes.

"Yeah sleeping a bit will be fine."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Yang opening her eyes again, rising from her seat. Groaning, she bent her arms a bit, only to be greeted with nothing.

"Jeez, all exhaustion and tiredness is gone." she spoke to herself, somewhat surprised. "How long did I sleep?"

Turning around she looked up to the clock to get an answer to that question.

"Seven AM?" she murmured starring at it, "That's impossible. Ruby or Zwei would've woken me... up..."

While mumbling her eyes wandered around the poorly lit room, and landed on the calendar attached to the fridge. It was wrong, it showed the date three weeks and two days ago.

Realization hit Yang like a bucket filled with ice water. The date and the time of day would be when she and Ruby had encountered the -

"Wow, you remember it. And here I thought you forgot."

Yang yelped upon hearing the voice right beside her and jumped backwards, accidentally stumbling over the seat and falling on her bum.

Before her, sitting on the table was somebody, or rather _something_ , that looked almost exactly like Yang. With the sole exceptions of her clothing and her beautiful long black hair, the strange girl was identical to her.

"Please." said the stranger with a voice which was eerily similar to hers, just harder, colder, and filled with spite. "Do not compare me to you. I can assure you we are nothing alike."

With that Yang discovered two more differences between them. The strangers eyeballs were completely black save for her pupils, which were blood red, with dark pulsating veins that went in the centers of them together. And to that came her/it's teeth, which were much larger and sharper than those of a normal human.

Extreme unease exploded in her, forcing her to avert her gaze from the stranger. She was not ugly, on the contrary; for the fact that she looked to be around Yang's age, she was very, very pretty. Her, _it's_ features felt just _wrong_ , as if she or it was something that just shouldn't be.

Than she noticed something else, something that turned her unease in panic. She could hear neither Ruby's laughter nor the TV. Twisting her head to stare in the living room, she found it empty.

"Who are you? And what did you do with Ruby? Where is my si- ak!" The girls hand were at her throat in a blink of a second, cutting her question off and forcing her onto the fallen chair. Meanwhile she moved her face only millimeters before hers, the thing's calm expression exploded into anger and rage.

"WHAT I DID TO HER?!" she screamed in absolute fury, making her flinch, "HOW DARE YOU, HOW DARE YOU TO ASK THAT? "

Lifting her up and almost strangling her in the process, she stared Yang directly in the eyes. "You want to know where she is? What happened to her?" she asked with a suddenly deadly calm voice. "Fine, I'll show where she is, and what is happening to her right now!"

The world around them seemed to shift, changing completely. Yang gasped as she recognized just where she was now. They were surrounded by trees, with the forest only being divided by a small path. And on this very path a scene happened that was a common guest to Yangs dreams for the last week.

She herself slumped together against a nearby tree, barely conscious and covered in her own blood. And not ten meters away stood the creature, holding her baby sister in it's claws. It ignored her entirely, too busy forcing pure darkness into Ruby's screaming form.

Every single cell of Yang's being cried out, and she ran towards them, only to phase through the pair without the monster even noticing. Again and again she tried to stop the monster, but to no effect.

"It is futile, you can not interfere." stated the girl who brought her here, causing her to finally fall on her knees. Yang clutched her ears with both hands while tears streamed down her face, screaming. "And even if you could, with as weak as you are, it would change nothing." She said this without malice or sadistic pleasure; instead only sorrow and regret was present in her words.

Looking down on the blond girl who had curled up into trembling ball ,contempt once again appeared on her features. "You'd thought you would be allowed to forget this? Something that was completely your fault?"

Yang didn't respond, and instead tried desperately to banish the scenes occurring before her. And indeed together with the actual Yang fading into unconsciousness, the memories faded away, with Qrow fighting the creature and something of a hole or empty rift picking her up and closing her wounds.

The girl stopped her mental crackdown on Yang, and observed that whatever was in rift saving Yang's life by activating her Aura.

"Why?" the blonde girl croaked with a broken voice. "Why are you showing me this? Who are you?" the question turned around, and stared at the still crying Yang. Kneeling down she grabbed her by the chin and brought the two at an even level.

"I am doing this because you fail to understand what has happened. You don't understand what you did to your sister, so I will make you realize just how destroyed her life will be thanks to your actions." ger voice was deadly serious as she spoke.

"Ruby will forever be a Drakid, it is irreversible. She will never be able to live a normal life." Hearing that Yang's eyes widened and she set to say something, but her counterpart didn't give her the chance. "She will never have friends, colleagues or a lover. She will never fit in society, be married or have children. She won't ever fulfill her dream of becoming a huntress, to be a heroine. Regardless of her actions, she will always be feared and hated by society, not because of who she is but because of what she is now. And all of that … because of you."

Disbelief and regret marked the sun locked child as she tried to say something, but was unable to properly articulate as she realized the truth.

Seeing that the black haired girl smiled as she prepared to deliver the kill.

"So?" she asked, "Are you ready?"

The question broke Yang out of her internal crisis. "R..ready for what?" she gurgled, her voice broken up by sobs.

"Are you ready to make up for that. Are you ready to replace all those things Ruby lost and will lose with yourself? Are you ready to sacrifice all your personal joy and devote yourself to her? Are you ready to take care of her?"

Yang nodded, of course she would on which the black haired girl just smiled. "No, not like that." Letting go of her chin her hand instead strode down neck, playing with her throat. "You lost all right to have a choice in this the moment you condemned her to this fate."

Her fingers suddenly tightened, strangling her.

"What I am asking you" she choked her harder, her sharp, claw like fingernails digging into Yangs skin, "Are you able to do that?" Yang tried to push her away pummeling her fists into the other girls stomach but to no avail, "are you strong enough to protect her from dangers?" Yang attempted to wring the grip that cut her air supply off open but they were like constructs made of iron.

"Are you willing to eliminate anyone who intends her harm?" slowly the world around her faded to black, but for some reason Yang could still perfectly hear what the girl said to her. "Can you stop the darkness within her, like I did the last night?"

And with that last sentence she finally released her, allowing her to plummet on the ground gasping for air.

"To answer your last question, I am you." going a step back she inspected Yang's collapsed form. "Or what you could've been. You may call me Eagle. Eagle Branwen."

The environment around them changed once again as they returned to where they had came from. Both of them remained quiet for a couple of minutes, the silence only deterred by Yang's slowly normalizing breath.

"You're not strong enough, not hard enough." stated Eagle, more monotone than angered. Is was not an insult, it was a statement of an obvious fact.

"Yes, I'm only ten after all!" yelled Yang. The experiences of the last half hour had shaken her up, but a bit of defiance was still present.

"As am I." countered Eagle, "and I could kill you with closed eyes and one arm bound to the back." The way she spoke, without arrogance or bragging, made it clear this was also a statement of fact as well.

"And?" said Yang stubbornly, "You're not me!" These words left Yang's mouth before she could really think about them. But instead of being provoked by them Eagle only laughed. It was a cold cruel laughter, holding no joy.

Yang barely noticed how she moved, and closed her eyes in anticipation of pain. But it was no hurt that meet her, it was the warmth of a hug. Feeling Eagle embracing her, pressing her head against her own, she slowly opened her eyes, utterly surprised.

She could see directly into the girls eyes. She faintly recognized they were of exactly the same size, their hair was of equal length, their mouths, noses, ears and foreheads were precisely the same shape. Eagle's warm breath tickled over her skin, and she involuntary shuddered.

"Believe me Yang," she whispered, all the previous hostility gone, "I am you just as you are me."

"Just like you are me?" mumbled Yang, while trying to back away. Eagles wrapped one arm around her waist while the other met the back of her head.

"Yes Yang, just like you are me. Yang I do not want to hurt you. Like you I just want the best for Ruby, our sister. I can help you become strong, I can help protect Ruby. You. Just. Have. To. _Accept_. Me." The last words were whispered separated, especially circulated.

"Accept me, let me become you and Ruby, our sister will be safe."

"I … just have to accept you?" repeated the blonde girl, equally quiet. Quiet and insecure. "B-but you did hurt me." The doubt in her words were clearly audible. But it was also obvious that that doubt in itself was fractured.

"Yes." she answered, while stroking and twirling the hair on her head. "Because I was angry, I thought that you forgot about Ruby. Because I wanted to make clear what challenges await us. Our sister needs us, she will have no one but us." Pulling the hair she was playing with she showed it Yang. The tips were black and the darkness slowly moved up overtaking more and more of the previous blond. Yang could also feel her vision and hearing began to change, how they became preciser, stronger. "See, your already accepting me. Soon we will be able to care for our beloved sister."

That last sentence cut the strings. Panic shot through Yang and she pushed the Eagle away from her. Surprisingly this worked, as her other half allowed herself to be shoved back without resistance, the surprise clearly visible on her face.

"No!" screamed Yang, "I don't want that!"

The formerly so peaceful and calming image gave way to a snarling grimace. "Fine!" she yelled. "Your only delaying the inevitable! Sooner or later we will become one and if only to protect her!"

With these words everything started to warp, to change.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Pain exploded around Yang's forehead as it collided with something hard. Groaning a bit she stood up, trying to recognize her surroundings. She was somewhere dark, a room without any light, and yet for some reason she could still faintly see what was around her.

"Am I still dreaming?" she asked herself, "Or what kind of dream was that? What that girl did, it had hurt yet once shouldn't be able to feel pain in dreams. And what she said..." she shuddered. "Could that really be true? Am I responsible for Ruby's condition?"

Her vision had adapted just enough to see she was in the basement of their house, to be exact where she had found the letter with team STRQ. And one of the big boxes which stood around was opened, and something very special was inside of it.

"Is that a sword?" thought Yang as she reached out towards it. It was a strange one, a katana if she was correct. "That must have belonged to my real mother."

She hesitated for a moment, her fingers only centimeters away from the sword. Should she really pick it up? She knew that her mother had used such a weapon, maybe, just maybe she was able to use a katana as well?

Images jumped into her head. Pictures of how useless she was when the Drakid had attacked them. Stepping forward she grabbed the weapon, and carefully lifted it out of the box. The suspense she felt was gone, as well as any doubt about her decision. Holding this weapon was the right decision.

She didn't notice a tiny bit of her golden mane, just a couple of strands, turning black, and the minuscule red dot in her pupil expanded a bit.

 **AN: So here is the explanation why it took me so long to update. Essentially a lot of stuff happened in the last months making my life a bit of a mess. Adding to that recently a relative of mine past away, which did not really put me in the mood to write. And before that I had the pleasant surprise of finding the Berserk manga for me and anyone who knows the berserk knows that he is quite time consuming. On the bright side I got several ideas for this story from it.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Drakiden Ruby: Into a dark Age**

 **Important authors note**

 **(Allen checks his body armor and cover)**

 **Well guys important announcement: This story to be exact will be rewritten again.**  
 **(Hastily ducks away to be not burned by the fandoms flamethrower)**

 **Yeah I know that I already did this but listen to my reasoning. Drakiden Ruby is something I started as a mindplay a couple of years ago. It´s an idea that just wouldn`t leave my head, that hold me hostage. I spent literal years thinking out new villains, enemies, twists and storylines. The only thing really stopping this story from becoming from a great concept to a great story was my abysmal writing skill. Now I said to myself that i´ll still try and my goal was to make this story something that I would want to read if I meet it as a stranger. And well I think I reached that standard with the last chapter. That however does not change that what i´ve written before is inconsistent horseshit. Today this day I have no idea why I thought crossing the Arc arc and the Transformation arc was a good idea. So yeah new rewrite. It´s name will be Drakiden Ruby into a dark age. And this will be it´s first chapter.**

Another silver beam sliced through the ranks of the Grimm, eradicating thousands in mere moments. Beowolves, Ursa, Nevermores, they all fell without making a difference. They were nothing in comparison to the might of the Silver Eyes. The Grimm were destroyed with impunity, the stain they represented on the world of Remnant wiped away by the purity of the warrior before them.

While other warriors might have become disheartened by the seemingly endless ocean of black and white, but not this one. As any attempt of bringing low the single hero who fought, no _slaughtered_ , the creatures of darkness failed. No amount of sheer numbers made a difference, all their hordes were for naught as not one came even close to the lone being.

Any monster that tried to engage her in close combat was annihilated, any type of projectile launched at her was vaporized upon making contact with the silver bubble shielding. The body of the maiden who marched through the bringers of calamity did so without fear, with all the craze and might other mortals might ascribe to that of a goddess.

And again, for the fourth time since the one-sided battle had begun, the lines of the Grimm shattered, the beasts driven away by the being who so generously gifted them with the fruits they normally spread. Terror. Fright. _Fear._

As the foremost lines of the enemy fled, the ones behind them, driven insane by the mere sight of the light, fell upon this source of panic to tear it apart, only overtaken by said emotion themselves. Once the being set her sight on them, the same terror coursed through the hordes, and they too fled before the sheer blinding power.

And amidst this bloodbath, sat the one responsible.

Summer Xiao Long-Rose. Proud mother of Ruby Rose, equally proud adoptive mother of Yang Xiao Long, and proud wife of Taiyang Xiao Long. Undisputed regent of the Rose-Xiao Long household, who ruled her realm with a gentle, yet iron fist. The inventor of the Rose cookie, the unchallenged empress of all sweets in all the world. She was the champion of Remnant, the possible greatest hero of this era. The first person to achieve the rank of Grand Paladin since the founders in the long gone Age of Darkness. And right now, the bane of the Creatures of Grimm.

 _Hmm, what should kind of dinner should I give my babies once I return home?_ thought Remnant's mightiest huntress, observing the scene of devastation before her. She scratched one of her aching eyes. "By the twins, staring for such a long time really itches!"

She yawned a bit and discovered some Behemoths, who tried to bring order back into the formations of Grimm. Sighing tiredly, she hold up one of her arms, aimed at the elder Grimm in question, and snipped with two of her fingers. A silver lance shot out from the tip of her index finger, racing towards the Grimm. In the blink of an eye the beam eradicated them from existence, undoing the somewhat regrouped army of Grimm to make them once again fall into chaos.

Summer stood up and began walking casually towards the whole mess. An Eldritch Grimm, a Beowulf who had almost the size of a Goliath, rushed towards her. The sheer speed it moved with made it appear less as a Grimm, and more like a dark shadow, crushing inferior Grimm in the dozens whenever its paws meet the ground. In mere seconds it had traversed the distance between itself and Summer, dodging multiple beams of silver light with an almost unnatural flexibility.

The moment the beast reached the silver bubble, Summer's final defense, the Grand Paladin ripped her arm up. The ball of light burst open, and the deforming structure coiled itself around the Grimm, entrapping the beast within a prison.

"Impressive." mused Summer. "It didn't die when it made contact with my power. It has to be eons old." Slowly closing her left hand, she watched how the ball shrank at the same rate crushing the Grimm, which she decided to call a Powerwulf, into a paste of blood, vaporizing bones and flesh alike.

"It´s still – Huh!" she let out a surprised shriek when the ground on which she stood began to rumble and shake.

Out of pure instinct she jumped back, the Aura she applied to her feet and legs allowing her to propel herself over thirty meters into the air in less then a second. The wind pressed like a brick wall against her, and she heard multiple crack like sounds in her ears, but she paid no attention as she stared at the thing before her.

Where she stood only a moment ago, now rose a massive worm like Grimm. It's entire body was covered by white bone plates, and from what little she was able to glimpse of the thing's mouth, it had been filled by row after row of monstrous teeth.

While still in the air Summer realized her mistake: She was in the air. She couldn't dodge.

She barely managed to create a barrier of Aura and silver light to brace for the impact, and she just slammed into the earth when the titanic Grimm worm whipped around, and rammed itself against the human. Summer screamed as she felt how the sheer force of the attack pressed the oxygen out of her lungs. Her entire form exploded in light as she unleashed the full might of her eyes against it. A silver wall slammed in the monster in hyper speed, forcing it off the Paladin.

An ear shattering cry trembled the air, as the light swept over the worms exterior left side, freezing the hide and bone plates alike, but utterly failed to damage it further then that.

"It's no good, raw assaults with my eyes won't penetrate deep enough to destroy it. I have no time for something more sophisticated. I'll have to use my Aura!" was the conclusion to which the woman came. The question was if that would be enough, but she had no other option.

Ramming her hands together, she assembled an enormous amount of concentrated Aura, the sheer volume of energy sending sparkles and tremors through the air, as Summer's Aura became visible even to the naked eye. Thrusting her connected hands skywards, she hit the Grimm just as it began to descend on her again.

Summer winced when she punched right through the fatally weakened skin of the monster, plastering herself with blood and bones as her directed Aura tore a hole into it, just big enough for her to not be squashed as the worm's gargantuan form descended. A heart beat later the monster was carved apart by an attack so fast, it could only be seen as a flash of light.

And right between the two slowly dissolving halves stood Summer Rose, cape flattering and a shining scythe in her hands.

"You were pretty tough!" complimented Summer to the corpse, now chirpy. "It's quite a while since I had to use Heillbringer seriously. Isn't that right darling?"

While saying that she affectionately rubbed over the weapon, still glowing from the use of the runes scrawled on it's surface. "Last time was in our fight with Peach, wasn't it? Ah, that was a great fig-"

Whirling around she brought the legendary scythe up ready to block whatever attack. And it wasn't one second too late as a black arrow shattered against the blade and promptly exploded, covering the woman in a cloud of smoke and fire.

This moment Summer noticed multiple things. First and foremost, she had her mouth open when that projectile exploded, and now she had the bitter taste of ashes on her tongue. Also her favorite hunting cloak, which had been dirtied enough already, now had burn holes and black singes all over it. Next she wasn't sure if she had remembered to make enough reserve lunch for Tai and her two little angels back home. Well, luckily she did teach Yang how to cook, so they wouldn't starve, or worse yet face Tai's cooking (the very thought of which made her shudder). And the sun was so nice today. Until a couple of moments ago the big orange ball in the sky had been hidden by bad weather.

Oh, and someone stupid girl was shooting arrows at her.

Summer lowered her weapon to casually snatch a second arrow out of the air, negating the explosive tip the moment she touched it. Compared to her fight with the Grimm worm and that Powerwulf, these projectiles were almost painfully slow.

She could see how the archer, almost a kilometer away, notched the next arrow. She whistled, definitely impressed. Shooting so precisely without a scope over such a distance was pretty much impossible, especially with a bow. This meant that her opponent had either some pretty high-tech eye implants, or was an at least somewhat capable Aura master. She decided to give her a visit.

Summer knelt down to evade a third arrow (she had a pretty good firing rate admittedly) and channeled not Aura, but instead pure energy direct from her silver eyes. Leaping ahead, she practically flashed through the space between them, leaving behind what little remained of a once great Grimm horde, which threatened the entire kingdom just hours ago. To think that the authorities originally intended to destroy the horde through a joint effort of the Valesian and Atlesian armies, together with large amounts of huntsmen and huntresses. The idea alone made her snicker.

Accompanied with the powerful boom of her breaking the sound barrier, Summer appeared before the girl who had been firing arrows at her so impolitely.

"Did no one ever tell you not to throw sharp at people without their consent? You might hurt someone!" she chided the girl, while whipping away the arrow before her eyes.

The woman had ashen hair and golden eyes, she could be considered really pretty in fact. Her assailant's eyes widened in terror upon seeing the legendary hero standing directly before her, especially after watching the utter destruction of a Grimm horde deemed a kingdom class threat. Nevertheless, she reacted fast. Fire flashed in her right palm as she lashed out towards Summers face.

Somewhat bemused, the Champion of Mankind slightly tilted her head, evading the immature attack without putting in any particular effort. Raising her left hand, caught the oncoming sword following the flames, using two fingers to bend the blade which was racing towards her kidneys a second ago.

"That was a nice feint." commented Summer, flashing a bright smile and grabbing the arrow she sealed in an Aura bubble, taking the bomb out to finally allow it to detonate.

The blast of the point blank explosion threw the ashen haired woman a couple of meters through the air, her entire left side blackened and burned.

"And you can summon swords. That is fascinating!" Summer half squealed, continuing to beam her smile at the stranger as if nothing had happened. Stretching herself a bit, the Grand Paladin moved her arms behind her back and created an Aura barrier almost two meters in diameter, moments before a barrage of glass javelins slammed into it. "Say is that your semblance, or have you actually mastered some of the ancient arts?"

Summer frowned when the only answer she received were another volley of glass shards, followed by some more arrows. Sighing she simply waved her arm through the air to create an Aura enhanced shock wave, shattering her attacks.

" _Can't she see that there is nothing she can do to hurt me?"_ she asked herself, watching the woman back away while continuing futilely launching blows at Summer. _"Doesn't look like it. Huh. Guess I'll have to get a little rough on her then!"_

Stomping on the ground, she released a wave of silver energy to destroy the arrows sticking up in the dirt around her, a bit annoyed that her opponent would think she wouldn't notice them. Time to teach her a lesson!

Her frame simply vanished, moving even faster than before. Appearing before the enemy, her right fist connected with the archer's solar plexus, while her other hand grabbed the victim's shoulders to prevent the woman from being blown away, forcing her to stand and take the full might behind the blow. Letting go Summer elbowed the stranger in the face, breaking her nose. The two consecutive, blows impacting in less than a second both stunned the woman and caused her to double over – directly into Summers knee.

"Are you ready to talk? We can continue if you want." No answer. "Oi! I didn't accidentally kill you, or made you bite your tongue off, did I?" Still no response.

The Grand Paladin groaned, her patience dropping.

"Hmm?" bowing down to the unmoving body of the huntress, Summer frowned a bit and poked her into the cheek.

"DIEEEEE!" she unexpectedly screamed, throwing off the act and clamping her hands around the Grand Paladins head, releasing enough heat to melt even iron.

"Now that was decently warm. I even felt it!" applauded Summer, a shield made out of white light laying around her head blocking any harm to her body. "But…" White light as well as the green cackles of hyper charged Aura circulated around Summers right fist.

"Not nearly as hot as my husband!" she drove her fist into the woman's abdomen, finally breaking her Aura and sinking almost her entire hand into her flesh.

Pulling her fists out, Summer took a step and watched her opponent vomit, plenty of blood mixed in with the bile. She collapsed again, but this time it was no act.

"You know." Summer knelt beside her again. "You're pretty unconvincing in your 'I'm dead' play. My daughters miles ahead of you in that aspect. So will you now tell me who you a-huh?"

The woman started to laugh. The blood in her mouth, as well as the destroyed teeth and tongue made it a gurgling, truly bone chilling sound.

"My name is Cinder. Cinder Fall!" And again she began her cackling mad laughter. "It'll be the absolute last thing you ever HEAR!"

And with these words she ripped her hands up, and countless black strings shot out of her arms, hands, and body. They hit Summer before she could react, she was too surprised to put up a defense.

The moment the dark strings touched her body, an extreme nausea ran throughout her entire being. She couldn't stop herself from stumbling, collapsing on her hands. Summer opened her mouth, but instead of words only vomit came out. She could feel something digging into her.

Something incredible vile inside her …, inside her body! It was interfering with her powe-!

Silver light circumvented Heillbringer as it bit through the many threads of Grimm matter, and carved itself into Cinder's right shoulder, simultaneously cutting Summer loose of a great deal of the Grimm Parasite, while simultaneously inflicting an almost certainly fatal wound on her opponent. Disconnected from over half of the entity, Summer was able to muster enough of her power to send a silver shock wave through her body, shattering the Grimm as if it were tainted glass.

Panting heavily, the Grand Paladin stared at her struck down foe. She couldn't remember the last time where she had been forced to summon the weapon by pure need.

A wave of sudden exhaustion hit her, and for the third time she sank on her knees. Summoning something like Heillbringer took a great toll on her body and soul. Legends (and Ozpin) claim it had been weapon of the Silver Eyed Goddess, crafted for her by the last Dragon King. Sounded ridiculous, but given Summer herself was a direct descendant of said Goddess, practically a Demigoddess in her own right, she had probably less trouble believing the tale than most other people.

All signs of carelessness were gone now, the warrior's overconfidence firmly banished. Summer grabbed the hilt of the scythe and sharply yanked on it, and with some difficulty she ripped the weapon out of the Cinder woman's collarbone.

Said person screamed when Summer grabbed the woman by her destroyed shoulder, and forced her to eye level.

"Who are you?" Summer yelled. "And what is your connection to Salem?" There was nothing but the Queen of the Grimm in this world that was powerful enough to block her powers. Her face and voice were deadly serious now. "Answer me!"

"Ha ha ha hah ha." Cinder laughed slowly, even through the pain of her broken teeth and mangled shoulder. "Ha ha ha, have ….. - you decided to look down? Or is that beneath you, oh hero of Remnant?"

Summer's eyes dipped to the ground, and what she saw froze the blood in her veins. They were standing on _Something_ resembling an eye, a single humongous eye. Feeling an immense danger, she let go of Cinder and instead pointed her arm towards the ground, white energy leaving from her entire form to create a defensive bubble, similar to the one she used during the fight with the Grimm horde.

The next moments dozens – no _hundreds_ of black tendrils shot out of whatever the thing was, and wrapped themselves around her sphere of energy along with the Cinder girl.

The tendrils smoked and splintered upon meeting the silver power, but weren't destroyed. Summer was pretty sure she could still make a getaway by destroying all these tentacles in one strike with her weapon, but in doing so she would open herself to attack as well. These things barely survived merely touching her barrier, there was no way they would be able to damage the barrier in any significant way. She would simply re-!

Before she could finish that thought, the eye thing opened below her feet, pulling down both her and the woman, who was now entirely subsumed in black tendrils. She tried to resist, Cinder didn't.

Tremors went through her protective ball, as she was completely submerged in the inky black that was the portal. The prior feeling of vile darkness returned tenfold, and it was almost enough to break Summer's concentration, and with it her barrier. Every sense of time, space and direction was lost as she was moved somewhere. She could feel herself leaving the region where she was prior, the place where she destroyed the kingdom threatening Grimm army. From there, she was taken somewhere else entirely.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The bubble burst open the moment it left whatever dark realm it transported through. And through the dispersing pieces of what had once been a protective body lay Summer Rose. Sweat was running down her body in thick rivers, and she was breathing heavily, her breath coming in loud pants.

She looked around, and froze in terror. The sky, formerly so deep and blue, was now a sickening red. Surrounding her in every direction were lands completely bereft of any life, and instead looked as if they were covered in black, moving paint, so numerous were the Grimm. Even the horde from before seemed minuscule to these masses. The air itself entering Summer's lungs tasted so completely wrong. But that wasn't what frightened the Champion of Mankind.

Before her, situated on a purple throne, rested the bane of Faunus and Mankind. The ruler and goddess of the Grimm, the sworn enemy of both races.

 _Salem._

Summer moved at a speed which made a complete mockery of her previous fight with Cinder. Grasping the hilt of her weapon, she was upon Salem in an instant, swinging her scythe with such inhuman speed and strength, the aftershock alone shattered the ground she was traversing.

The moment the weapon should have impacted on the dark goddess's neck, something hit her in the gut and forced her back, causing her to narrowly miss her target. The dark mistress didn't even flinch. Glancing down, she saw the source to be something closely resembling a dark spear, originating from the ground. Jumping back, she barely avoided being impaled as it shot completely out into the air.

"Is that … a Grimm?" asked Summer to herself, staring at it with raw shock. Channeling energy, she tried to summon her Silver Eyes, but found herself unable to do so.

During her brief moment of distraction, the spear like Grimm bent around and shot at her once more, aiming it's sharp end towards her head. Flicking her wrist Summer, quickly slashed it apart with Heillbringer.

" **Pathetic."**

Whipping around to the speaker Summer saw that Salem had still not moved an inch from her ornate black throne. She instead had a grimace, not too dissimilar to Summer's when she had fought Cinder. It was the face of someone who was bemused over being challenged by a weak opponent, something so far beneath her in comparison that it would take nothing more than the lifting of one finger to crush the insolent being.

" **Is that all you can do? I expected more."** she told her, the voice alone sending fearful shudders throughout her entire body. **"You aren't worthy of my presence. Begone!"**

Lifting one of her palms towards the sky, something akin to a black mass appeared to flow from her palm. Summer quickly noticed the shapeless cloud was rapidly growing bigger and taking form!

Backing away, the Grand Paladin just so avoided what looked like an enormous black paw, even with her tremendous speed, barely dodging the blow. It pulverized the rock where she had previously stood, sending flecks of gravel flying into the air. The same moment hundreds, if not thousands, of Nevermore, varying from normal bird sized to being almost as big as airships, attacked her from all directions. At the same time, whatever that gargantuan paw had belonged to slowly formed over Salem.

Gripping her scythe with both hands, Summer began slicing through the endless cloud of avian Grimm descending on her, falling into an almost meditative dance of death as she cut down Grimm after Grimm. Concentrating on avoiding and attacking simultaneously, the Grand Paladin decimated row after row of the beasts, relying on nothing but her skill. All while trying to break through whatever force was blocking her from using the silver eyes.

She could sense the power were still there, still safely within her body. But it felt off, as if something was changing, or rather _influencing_ , her greatest asset.

Without warning, something tore through the wall of Grimm and slammed into her chest, breaking at least four ribs when it connected. Her crumbling Aura was too weak to completely stop the force. Screaming at the pain, she stared helplessly at the enormous Grimm wolf which pinned her down under one of it's feet. Looking down on her, the beast opened it's mouth and a gigantic ball of yellow energy began gathering in its disgusting maw.

Acting on pure instinct, Summer managed to push through whatever was blocking her powers, collecting as much of it as she could. Just in time, as the hoover chose that moment to fire the ball of destructive energy down at her.

Silver met gold as the two forces collided, creating an almost fantastical show of lights and sparkles. For a moment neither attacker seemed to be able to overpower the other.

The next moment both beams dispersed, and Summer Xiao Long Rose, fortified by the protective might of the silver eyes, jumped direct through them, having freed herself from the paw and destroyed most of it in the process. She impacted against the skin of the beast and with a lighting fast slash from Heillbringer, cut right through the dark flesh, severely wounding the monster.

Stomping on it's divided face, Summer used the beast's shattered mask as a stabilizer while she swung her weapon again, sinking the ethereal blade into the monsters neck. Aiming her hand down, she shot a javelin of silver light at the monsters skull, easily penetrating the ruined head and pierced through it's brain, killing it instantly.

Launching herself off the collapsing Grimm, she raced towards Salem as fast as she could go, her body set ablaze with silver light. The barrier was strong enough to erase anything that dared stand in her way.

Three meters from her target she abruptly stopped, crashing against an invisible wall. Her power, the inner light that had shined through the devastated lands of this realm, deformed and retracted back until it was barely wrapped over her body. It was as if she had smacked against a wall of solid steel.

" **Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha."** The Grimm goddess she … she was _laughing_. In fact, she looked at her with an amused expression, despite the deaths of her pet and countless other Grimm.

"What's so funny?" demanded Summer, struggling to deploy her power once more. "Tell me so I may laugh as well!"

Suddenly the pressure which stopped her attack increased tenfold, and the demigoddess was almost forced her on her knees. Only ramming the base of Heillbringer into the ground supported her weight.

" **You look exactly like her!"** answered Salem bemusedly. **"You resemble Tenshi so much, and yet you are so incredible weak."**

 _Tenshi?_ Summer thought, causing the goddess to grin knowingly.

" **You may know her as the silver eyed goddess.** " She laughed again, slowly rising from her throne. Walking towards the prisoner, she inspected Summer like a cat would inspect a mouse caught in a trap. **"You are definitely of her lineage."**

The dark being slowly caressed her face with her cold, dead fingers.

" **Only those of her brood could ever wield that weapon."** Her arm lowered to the glowing scythes grip, but she was seemingly unable to reach it. **"Her presence on this thing is unmistakable. I could never forget the tool that brought me to the borders of destruction all these millennia ago."**

Her clothing shifted and divided itself, showing a massive black line reaching from her right shoulder to her thighs. "No one was ever able to wound me as she did. No Dragon King, no mage or witch, nor even Drakid could ever do this to me. To this day I still feel the pain of Heillbringer's bite."

Summer screamed at her body to move, to cut down the terrifying woman who was so close. But her arms and legs refused to even budge.

" **But in your hands is that grand weapon useless."** Salem calmly stated, in a manner that made it clear she thought it was a fact. **"You are less than a shadow of what Tenshi had been. You do not have her skill, strength, or might the Silver Eyed Goddess possessed. You have the remnants of the beast she was inside you, but so long as you cannot use them, you're nothing. Just another insect for me to smash."**

Something wild reared it's ugly head within Summer, something she resisted for most of her life. It was _rage_. Primal, feral wrath called up by the fear inside of her. Not for her own life, but that she wouldn't see Yang and Ruby, the two gems of her existence, ever again. So this time, instead of repressing the rage Summer embraced it, welcoming the anger; using the newfound strength to break through whatever invisible chains were binding her in place.

The look of surprise on Salem's face filled Summer with joy as she suddenly moved, ripping her scythe up to gut the creature before her, inflicting a lethal injury. Salem tried to back away, pressing her hands on her belly trying to contain her spilling innards, but she was too slow. Another swipe of Heilbringer and the Queen of the Grimm was promptly decapitated.

Panting heavily, she stared at her foes body, the adrenaline and excitement still burning through the her vines. Had she- had she really don't it? She, she killed Salem! She di-!

Her euphoria was interrupted by slow clapping, seeming to originate from directly behind her.

" **Congratulations!"** mocked Salem, the real Salem. **"You managed to take out one of my clones. I am truly impressed! You absolutely deserve the title of Grand Paladin!"**

Pointing her hand towards her she snipped with her fingers and blasted the Paladin back with a sudden gust of wind. Instead of trying to fight the attack Summer allowed it to hit her, and take her away from the entity.

" **When the Alphas and I fought against Tenshi and the founders escorting her, our battle devastated this realm. This once rich green land was transformed into a dead hell."** Salem continued talking, her voice despite the increased distance between her and Summer as audible as if she stood directly before her. **"Compared to these Grand Paladins you are nothing but a weak pretender."**

Hearing these words the prior rage returned burning even fiercer and Summer fired a huge wave of silver energy towards the Grimm Queen only for her to divide it before it even met her, presumably the same technique she had used to stop her before.

"I AM A GRAND PALADIN!" roared Summer, while shooting similar attacks with similar results. She held large pride in that title given that she was the only human to achieve it since the age of the Drakid. Now hearing that she didn't held up to the standards of the founders of the grand Families, well it didn't do wonders to her.

" **Oh really?"** chuckled Salem and once again raised her hands, causing Summer to fall in a defensive stance in preparation for some kind attack. **"Go get her Obedion!"**

Summer sensed something immense approaching from behind her and, trusting her instincts, she jumped sideways in a frantic attempt to doge. But she was too slow, and the massive thing impacted against her back to send her flying. Gasping in pain, Summer reached out to her power in midair to fired a blind volley of blasts towards the assailant, hoping that would be sufficient to end it. In the meantime she channeled the silver eyes once again, trying to warp herself a safe distance away.

Then a wave of exhaustion hit her, originating from all the damage she had been hit with coupled with the overuse of her eyes. Her vision blurred for a moment. and sharp pain shot through her skull. It was a glaring notification that she wouldn't be able to keep this fight up for long.

It took a few seconds but her sight recovered to some degree, but the throbbing ache remained.

" _My eyes are already shutting down?"_ Unconsciously she rubbed one of them. _"This means I'll have to end this fight quickly. Finishing off the one that just hit me and then run for it."_

The world around her returned but she only saw blurs, and something akin to a black fog blocked her vision to everything beyond her immediate surroundings. Using an ability as immensely powerful as the silver eyes came with a price. A mix of her strong Aura, Ozpin's magic and her bloodline that reached supposedly directly to the silver eyed goddess helped but with her aura broken and Oz's magic spent her lineage brought her only so far.

Concentrating on her ears she tried her best to locate any potential attack or new swarm of Grimm while jumping around in an effort to be less of an ideal target for her foes.

" _I have no chance against Salem. Any further use of my silver eyes will probably hurt me more than her."_ The realization was easy and the course for her next actions was quickly made. _"I may be no match for her but I now know where her hideout is located. If I make it back I can inform everyone. Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, Peach and maybe even Raven, together we'll definitively beat her!"_

Her eyesight completely normalized itself only moments after her reaching that conclusion and Summer was free to stare at the Grimm who had managed to send her flying. She stared and stared and stared.

Summer Xiao Long Rose had fought many Grimm in her life, both in her time as a student at beacon and later as a full fledged leader of an elite hunter team. She had continued the fight against the Grimm even after she was lifted into the ranks of the Paladin.

She had exterminated legions of Ursa, Beowulf and creeps. She had cut down all kinds of serpentine Grimm, had crushed elder deathstalkers in the deserts of Vacuo, had cleansed entire mountains of seemingly endless flocks of Nevermore and Griffins. She had reclaimed the wastelands and ruins that were Mountain Glenn, eliminating any possibility of a similar disaster occurring to Vale. She had seen and killed all kinds of exceptional Grimm, from Dragons that disrupted the see travel to the human like sirens. She purged the Mistralian Mother hive of it's insecticidal beast slaying the queens and kings. She had discovered a race of parasitic Grimm that harvested humans for their Aura and semblances and used their bodies as breeding stocks. And within an hour she became the reason for said's Grimm races extinction.

She had been disgusted and repulsed by different Grimm force but since her days in Beacon she had never met one that could give her that feeling that was now pulsing through her body.

Fear.

Disbelieving her eyes she stared at the enormous being that stood before her like a mountain. The Grimm could almost be called humanoid but not in the sense that the Grimm goddess had been. His entire huge over eighty meter tall form was covered in a thick armor made out of white bones with nowhere being even a tiny bit of it's black flesh visible.

It had human like face only that it missed a nose and had instead of what human or faunus may have called mouth an in spike covered hole. His eyes were hollow except for a simple burning light that presented it's pupil. And where a human or faunus may have had hairs or bold skull skin it had almost a dozen horns each alone the height of a Goliath.

Disbelieving her eyes she stared at the enormous being that stood before her like a mountain. The Grimm could almost be called humanoid but not in the sense that the Grimm goddess had been. His entire huge over eighty meter tall form was covered in a thick armor made out of white bones with nowhere being even a tiny bit of it's black flesh visible.

It had human like face only that it missed a nose and had instead of what human or faunus may have called mouth an in spike covered hole. His eyes were hollow except for a simple burning light that presented it's pupil. And where a human or faunus may have had hairs or bold skull skin it had almost a dozen horns each alone the height of a Goliath.

" **You say that you are worthy of the title of Grand Paladin, huh?"** sounded Salem dark voice through the air, seemingly originating from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. **"Allow me to introduce you to Obedion. He is quite a magnificent specimen isn't he?"**

The Grimm titan began to move forward, every of his steps send tremors through the ground.

" **He is one of the first Grimm ever created. So to say one of the first not unlike me in a sense."** A sinister chuckle was audible. **"Tenshi and her four companions, Eis Schnee `The Ice Queen, Jaune Arc `The Hero`, Hawk Branwen `The First of the Faunus` and that blasted King of Dragons. All of them were Grand Paladin and everyone of them was truly worthy of that title. They killed dozens of Obedions kind and the Arc and the Dragon King were even able to battle Drakid Alpha's on even ground. You can not even begin to compare to them. Now if you manage to beat Obedion I may consider fighting you myself."**

With that the Empress of the Grimm stopped talking and the titan before her started moving again.

Reflexes, honed by decades of training took over and Summer herself moved, trying to further the distance between them in order to avoid being squashed like a fly. A thick cloud made of dust and shrapnel shot through the air and covered Summer in hundreds of mini projectiles as the enormous foot of the giant came down only centimeters from her.

Swinging her scythe the Paladin cut through the shock wave that was created by the impact and launched herself forward intending to half the entire foot of the creature using her natural speed as well as the devastating weapon she wielded to the full extent.

Heillbringer signaled a brilliant white flash as it connected with their foe and began to immediately to melt through it's bone structure bifurcating it's big toe. Suddenly the leg jerked away forcing Summer with her. Through the tip of her right eye she could see the huge shadow that was it's hand descend upon her.

Reacting quickly she ripped her weapon free, disconnecting the toe in the process and channeled her silver eyes. Holding the scythe like a spear into the sky she jumped only second's before being crushed. Flying good twenty meters through the air she smashed into the Grimm's leg not far below it's knee. Sliding down a couple of meters Summer managed to stop her descend by sinking her blade into the bone while waiting for her eyesight to recover again.

" _There is now way for me to outrun that thing. I have to kill it!"_ A light sensation of sickness hit Summer as well as physical exhaustion. _"Dammit I'm at my limit for my eyes! Any further use of the silver eyes will have worse and worse consequences! What should I do? How do I kill it?"_

The world around her once again became clear allowing her to see the leg she was clinging on more clearly. It wasn't even as she thought first. Instead it was winkled in sudden heights and slight holes almost as if these were scares from prior battles. Staring up she could see how the being inspected it's hand see if it had succeeded in killing her. Grasping out to the nearest scar, Summer began to slowly climb up the giants legs.

" _Think Summer, Think! How do you kill this thing?"_ She supposed that she might have been able to take it out if she wasn't worn out and had overused her eyes, but now she saw no way how to end this fight quickly.

" _It looks faintly human, does that mean that it has human weak points as well?"_ she asked herself while advancing over it's kneecap.

Once again the leg shifted, throwing Summer almost of but she managed to narrowly avoid the fall by ramming her scythe into it's skin. Suddenly the large shadow of it's hand once again descended on her and Summer jumped, just like last time away, only to crash into it's other hand that raced down to intercept her mid jump.

Gasping in pain Summer came the realization. " _It was moving so slow on purpose! It fooled me!"_ Right before she slammed into the ground, the huge hand coming down on her to smash her like a fly.

….

….

….

Pain. Pain filled Summers entire form. She was somewhat surprised to fell it however, having expected to die. Glancing down she saw that she was glowing. From head to toe, from her beautiful ruby red hair to her equally red boots she radiated a green light, with some green scripture drawn all over her skin.

" _That is… Ozpin's magic?"_ Realized the champion of Mankind. Had the young and simultaneously ancient sorcerer really enchanted her clothing to this degree, that the protective wants on it survived such massive force?

Suddenly a new wave of power flooded her, ending all nausea and weakness inside her and even containing the throbbing ache that threatened to explode her skull.

" _That is Post Mortem!"_ she thought in awe. A so called last chance spell, that temporarily neutralized all injuries, may they be physical or astral and put the affected back into his or her prime for a short time.

Realizing that this granted her only a couple of moments and that she was still in the process of being crushed by the Grimm she, not to dissimilar to situation she'd been in with the giant Grimm worm earlier, summoned a massive amount of silver eyed might and began to push the giant's hand back.

" _Using so much of my eyes even with Post Mortem active, the backlash will be brutal!"_ The giant clearly increased his efforts to shove her into the ground but her was ever so more forced back. _"And once the spell end's … I will most likely be rendered blind."_

There was no bitterness in the thought, only bleak acknowledgment of the facts.

" _And once I lose my eyesight with this thing still alive, I'll die!"_ Pictures of a certain tiny, red haired girl and a somewhat bigger blonde girl flashed through her head. "Ruby, Yang." She remembered the conversation she had with the two as well her promise to be back to her little girls ninth birthday.

She couldn't, wouldn't die here.

Packing Heillbringer with both hand she swung the weapon with her entire might against the white wall before her, cutting through bone, flesh and skin, coating herself in the dark blood of the Grimm. The heavy, pitch black liquid vaporized the moment it made contact with the silver energy surrounding Summer, not one stain reaching the descendant of the silver eyed goddess.

A screech of pain filled the air, load enough to rapture unprotected eardrums. The hand flinched back but it was to late. Four of five fingers, from the pinky finger to the index finger had been completely severed and through the fountains of dark blood flew the Grand Paladin, glowing as an intense white light intent on vanquishing all evil.

Rushing through the sky she crossed the distance between them in under a second, air and sound bending around her in ominous cracks as she channeled more and more power into her weapon lighting it up brilliantly, turning metal and iron into something astral silverlike. The very world around them seemed to groan and repent as the legendary item changed into it's actual form, a construct of mass destruction, that had been the Silver eyed goddess tool to best the Drakid Alpha's.

Walls of Nevermore and other avian Grimm rose up around them, and in the distance Summer could see that Salem was callously observing her fight from afar, now protected by an enormous dome made out of Grimm matter, growing as the Queen of Grimm hastily threw every Grimm in the Area between her and the devastating attack that she was about to unleash.

The titan Grimm itself tried to retreat, realizing what was about to happen but a new command of his mistress caused these actions to stop. Grabbing the holy now almost intangible scythe with both hands an earth shattering pulse of energy broke out of Summer form blasting through the thousands creatures, turning them into ash or banning them outright out of existence.

She herself did barely notice this as she screamed in agony that was unlike everything she had ever felt before. Even holding Heillbringer in it's astral form almost pulverized Summers arms, stuffing power into her till she felt she was about to explode. Every vine, every bone, every organ hurt as might that wasn't made for her burned through them causing damage and pain to the extent that only touching it almost destroyed her. She could not even begin to imagine how it may feel if she swung this piece of divine might or what it would do to her.

Well she guessed she was about to find out.

It was almost as if time itself had stopped as she slowly, oh so slowly, lifted Heillbringer up, every nerve, every muscle in her body screaming as they were torn by the unimaginable strength, which had once rested in the object but was now in the process of waking up.

Her vision tunneled as more and more of her body broke down aiming at the frozen giant before her. Pictures, images, scenes of her past brushed aside her. They showed her with a blond man, who was so strong and yet so kind and loving. With him were her two little angels laughing and having fun.

"Yang, Ruby, Tai…. I'm sorry. Looks like I won't be coming back after all..."

And she brought the weapon down.

.

.

.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"AfrGHGF!" Was all that left her mouth, as she was no longer able to properly articulate.

She no longer felt anything on her hands, arms, feet and legs except this feeling. This soul shattering, mind tearing, driving into insanity feeling. It felt as if every nerve in her body had been laid bare for the merciless world to ravage. She no longer knew what this unpleasant sensation has been called.

She could no longer hear, where once had been her ears now was nothing but holes from which blood bubbled out, she could no see something as felt something rinsing down her wasted cheeks.

"SHE….." Even thinking brought her more and new types of agony. "I…. have…. To -" She had almost managed to grasp the thought but it slipped away again. "I … have…. To …. livE..." She had to what? And Why? What was that? Live? What meaning had that?

Pictures flared up each representing persons. A black haired man and one with golden hair. The man was in some black suit and beside him stood a woman (her maybe?) in a long dress as white as snow. She saw herself agreeing to something he said and the entire crowd before them cheered. She then saw the woman wreathing in pain and screaming while cursing the blond man beside her until moments later she was holding something fleshy and wrinkly in her hands, that was crying. The woman and the man were crying to put it did not seem to be because they were anymore in pain.

Suddenly the woman was with a similar but bigger and older thing and was singing both of them into sleep. These pictures brought relieve and ache to her, that she felt deep inside her as if something inside her was screaming up. It an entire new kind of pain. And unable to bear it she banned these pictures and scenes from her mind.

They were replaced by new ones. Strange and different ones. They felt foreign and alien as if these did not belong to her. She saw a woman identical in form but different exterior. Her hair, her entire entire even her skin was of a silverish color. She was in armor that seemed to equally exist and yet not be there. She wasn't alone, behind her was an enormous army, consisting of countless humans and faunus. Above her in the sky flew hundreds, if not thousands of Dragons, each more magnificent than the last but none managed to come even close to the one who accompanied the silver woman herself. The creature had golden scales that could rival the sun in their shine and once again that feeling returned to her chest, that longing.

There were others, a man with long dark hair, armed with two longish slender blades, one red as blood the other one white. There was a woman in blue with white hair that held a sword that looked as if it was made of blue crystals. And then there was blonde, blue eyed man who wielded nothing but a plain sword and shield and yet was marching with confidence.

These five were leading an army larger and bigger than anything the world had ever seen prior or after this event.

Who were these people? Who was she? Where was she? What had-?!

A new intense pain ripped her out of the questions as something stabbed her through the right shoulder.

" **I….. you.. worthy…. Grand Paladin!"** She could barely understand whoever was talking to her and trying to gave her only new pain.

Suddenly something hit her face.

"AJBWEUFWEFEFB!?" It… IT WAS DRILLING INTO HER HEAD!

Panic began to set in as she felt it and she began to trash around, attempting to stop the thing of what it was currently doing to her skull, but she couldn't use her limps.

Panic began to set in as she felt it and she began to trash around, attempting to stop the thing of what it was currently doing to her skull, but she couldn't use her limps.

" **Stop resisting!"** ordered something in a commanding voice. She did not hear someone saying that, the words just appeared in her brain. Something inside her was appalled by the very suggestion of just giving up, but another lance of unspeakable agony silenced that voice.

She had no time to wonder what that inner voice was or to whom it belonged as suddenly more words appeared inside her.

" **I must say I'm quite impressed. To use that weapons astral form and to survive? That feat goes beyond the extraordinary! With that one strike you wiped out every Grimm in this entire region and, if you had concentrated it instead of just sending out a cleansing pulse you could've seriously injured me! The only other person to ever use that might was Tenshi and well she was quite literally a goddess so ..."**

She could no longer concentrate it, her entire attention singled, directed at that one name.

"TenSHi!" She screamed up at the pain that speaking with her devastated mouth brought but she couldn't hold it back.

That… THAT. T.H.A.T. Name!

Memories were exploding though her filling her skull and vanquished all else even the pain she felt.

Power flew through her, restoring eyesight and the use of her limps. Her new vision pictured the image before in black and white, Dark and silver. She saw the Enemy before her a surprised, no shocked that face that slowly realized. Bringing up her hands she could see the broken bones and shattered fingers but that did not stop her of bringing forth her next move.

Before Salem could struck her down or order the parasite inside her to kill her she attacked.

A new Sun, not made out of gold but of brilliant silver flashed in existence, the massive glowing ball rapidly expanding and engulfing the entire scenery.

More and more memories flowed back into her mind, in such volumes that the sheer amount of it almost completely overwhelmed her. There were scenes of glorious and grand battles of the past, of two children whose names she did not know. It was confusing and much of the information was contradicting, but that did not matter to the being as she eradicated the last remnants of Grimm inside her.

She had a battle to fight. Who or what she was is entirely secondary to that. The being would have enough time to figure these things out after she had survived this battle

Standing up she moved slowly, harshly. Her body was broken to a point where even she could not fully repair it, at least not in such a short time spawn.

She came to these realizations within the first second of her launching her attack. At 1.5 seconds she had finished standing and began to fix what could be fixed. At 2.3 seconds the silver sun had reached it's maximum expansion, having a diameter of multiple miles.

At 2.9 seconds she noticed in fact that the entity she had forced back with her actions was still within her reach, inside the for it corroding silver light. Coming to the conclusion that drawing profit from it's own confusion the being decided that the best course of action would be to directly assault her before the silver sphere could collapse.

Recalling Heillbringer back into the physical plane she finished the last improvements to her form and launched her attack.

At 3.2 seconds she reached the Grimm creature who had distance itself multiple hundreds of meters in an attempt to escape her and the sphere.

Moving at meta sonic speeds the scythe itself wasn't visible to something as primitive as a human eye as it clashed dozens of times with the Grimm, ripping holes and cliffs through it.

At 3.9 seconds the Grimm had finished producing it's defensive weapon by creating a blade staff, while equally closing and melding her slashed apart constantly regenerating form.

At 4.5 seconds the rapidly collapsing hull of the silver sun reached the two combatants and – after clinging to them for a miniscule part of a moment leaving them behind.

Being now able to use her visual senses again she could now accurately asses how much damage she had done to Salem.

Her opponents clothing, along with most of her skin had been melted away by her first strike and her body was covered in cuts of varying severity.

Contemplating for a moment to launch an astral strike on her she quickly dismissed it and continued her relentless attack. She frowned at the ever present knacks and booms harassing her ears. She had been adjusted to fighting at such speeds but it seemed like this body was not. In fact this entire form despite feeling severely weaker than what she was used to.

Her foe however had seemingly no such problems as every wound she inflicted on it seemed to heal as fast as they came.

"No!" Realized she. "That is no regeneration! That's recreation!" Once again broke her scythe broke through her opponents defense and cut through her weapon into her chest. Not intending to allow the Grimm to regain her stance she engulfed her own had in silver light and threw a punch aiming at the face, however Salem manged to catch it using the tentacles that grew out of her shoulders, while simultaneously stabbing through her lower body using the two halves of the blade staff.

She was just able to limit the damage by destroying the improvised spears through once again calling fourth her silver eyes. Ripping her fist and her weapon free she jumped back, narrowly avoiding a ton of tentacles breaking out from all over Salem's body and started racing towards her.

Gripping Heillbringer with both hands she encased it into her might and swung it. The sheer air pressure created by it cut through the black tendrils and forced the abomination a couple feet back buying her enough time to do this.

For a second time on this day the world seemed to coil around the scythe as it began to phase into another plane, the dimension of deities and devils, drawing power that couldn't possible exist on Remnant as it's structure itself changed. But this time around the weapon did not shift alone. Instead whatever seemed to happen to it expanded to it's wearer too.

Tenshi Rose slowly opened her eyes again after instinctively closing them. She was one with Remnant and Remnant was one with her. Seeing Salem before her she could only laugh at it's comparatively sluggish movements, helpless attempts to somehow reach her.

Ignoring her the silver eyed goddess breathed in, taking in the essence of this time into her and it hit her like a Dragons warhammer. This world, this time it, it was so pure. Tears quelled up in her eyes. Sure there were certain evils among the humans and faunus, not to mention the existence of the Grimm.

But it was missing something certain, the presence of one specific source of evil that had been the bane of her time. The great evil, the destroyer and despoiler, the cancer of her existence were missing. There were none of them here. There. Were. No. Drakid!

Countless memories flooded her now clear mind. The genocide of the Dragon race. The Destruction of grand Kingdoms, Republics and empires of Man and Faunus. The deaths of her friends and companions. All those who had fallen in order to finally brings the Alphas down. A particular scene crossed her mind. She herself lying dying in the arms of her Tai-Long, her lover, partner and husband. They both were covered in wounds but these hadn't been what had sealed her fate. Her mind, no her soul had been critically damaged in her last fight with the Alpha Nathuellia before she had finally managed to seal her with the other alpha's finally away an a prison she and Merlin had crafted themselves.

With the alpha gone she could still

With the alpha gone the only thing she had to do was to erase this last stenches on Remnant and this world could finally find peace!

A sudden sensation shot through her and sent tremors through both the astral and physical plane. Shifting her attention back to Salem she could see that she also had begun to phase into the astral plane.

" _Took you long enough to notice."_ thought Tenshi. That was of course relative given that in real time only a couple of Nanoseconds had passed. Raising her left hand a massive swirl of energy began to concentrate around it. _"Sorry Salem but it seems like there are no Drakid around to safe you this time!"_

Forcing her arm back into the real world she for a moment shattered the barrier between astral and real allowing a huge pulse originating from her arm to enter Remnant with predictable results. The released energy destroyed everything, mountains, cloud formation, the entire landscape was leveled. Whirlwinds made out of rocks, dust, and dirt rose to the sky as everything, truly everything, in the surrounding thirty miles or so was wiped out.

A sudden explosion of pain shot through Tenhi's new body as something collided with her. In the astral plane. Trying to turn around to see what was happening her body twisted in pain and began to convulse.

"I.- I can't move, what is happening?" New pain blossomed around her chest and she faintly shifted her head to see what it was.

A clawed hand shrouded in absolute darkness had impaled her straight through her heart. There was no blood or even any visible form of injury, but the famed silver eyed goddess had been hit lethally non the less.

Tenshi felt how her incorporeal became heavy darkness spreading from the claw through her entire body and she suddenly snapped back into the physical plane. In fact she was falling from her earlier position right down the massive crater, that she had created with her earlier attack.

Panic shot through her body as she plummeted towards the ground. She tried helplessly to call her silver eyes out but nothing happened.

In a last desperate attempt she moved what little Aura this form had recovered into her legs, steeling them for the impact, but it was of no use. A pained cry escaped Tenshi's lips as she landed, the force behind it cracking through her Aura and shattering most of her leg bones. But a new sensation broke her away from this agony. Right before her seemed reality to rend and tear as a person shrouded in black appeared.

In a desperate attempt to stop whatever there was coming, she raised her hands, of which only one responded. Looking aside Tenshi saw the reason for that and almost vomited. Her right arm was, for the lack of the better word, destroyed. It hadn't been able to withstand the force of the astral release.

Forcing her eyes away from what at one point may have resembled a limp she looked back at the figure who had by now fully materialized in all of her horrible glory. Completely clad in pitch black scales, wings and tail the almost fifteen foot tall creature slowly descended towards her.

"A Drakid! And it's completely unlike anything i've ever seen. I've never felt something like that, not even the Alphas compare. It almost feels like ….. me?! A twisted perverted version that of me…!?"

Feeling a minuscule part of her power return she fired a blast of silver energy at Drakid only for her to create a ball of black energy in one of her hands and to hurl that into her attack. The moment the orb met the stream of silver it expanded almost as if it was annulling, no infecting Tenshi's attack.

She just managed to throw herself aside and avoided being torn apart as the attack narrowly missed her main body mass and just grazed her severing what was left of her right arm in the process of.

Before Tenshi was able to suppress the pain the Drakid launched a second attack, a black spear, exactly the moment her attention had been diverted because of the loss of her arm remnants.

Now if Tenshi had been in her old form she may have been able to dodge, to fight but battered and exhausted from fighting she stood no chance. Seeing the lethal attack coming but knowing that she wouldn't be able to dodge she in a haste made one final decision. Earlier one the astral plane she had felt the presence of two of her companions that had somehow survived their brutal fights against the Alphas. Merlin. The supreme wizard felt different from when she had known him Eons ago, but he was still here as was her beloved husband Tai-Long. If there were two warriors that had the skills to at least fight something like an Alpha off but for that they needed a proper weapon to do so.

Assembling what little of her power was left she encased Heillbringer in silver light warping the holy weapon away to whoever of the two was closer. The Drakid were back and this world needed weapons capable of fighting them. This woman whose body she inhabited, she had offspring, who may in time be able to use the weapon. This meant that there was still hope for this Remnant to fight on if the Drakid were to return.

The lance impacted on Tenshi's chest just left to her heart impaling her lungs, cutting through her ribcage and nailing her to the ground. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing but blood came out. She felt how the curse burned through her veins. Her vision began to shimmer darkness surrounding her.

"It...is almost reminiscent of my first time." She managed to think. A large scaled Drakid beating her down having bested her after a narrow merciless battle. "I just doubt that there'll be a dragon in golden armor to save me this time, huh?"

Looking up she could see how a massive dark shadow descended on her and then everything went dark.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tears ran down her face as brought the mangled form of Tenshi's new host on the black altar.

" **What are you going to do?"** The question remained unanswered for a moment as she instead inspected her body a bit longer. Waiting another couple of moments she finally answered.

" **I'm going to use her body to fully bring back the power of those of my children she had imprisoned."** Was the answer.

Even Salem shuddered for a moment at hearing this. Hundreds of Drakid were in various stances all around them. All frozen in time and space by the silver eyed goddess for all of eternity.

Only, this imprisonment seemed to fall short. The power of the black eyes crept around them like some kind of nightmarish parasite eating at the barriers, infecting them as if they were rotten flesh. And yet until this point the silver light had refused to bulge no matter how much they had been withered with.

" **How do you plan to break the seal?"** asked Salem, annoyed. The queen of the Grimm and Goddess in her own right wasn't used to having to beg someone for answers. Under normal circumstances there were none who would have dared to withhold information from her and those who did often experienced the consequence of doing so.

But this was not the case as Salem had no illusions who would win a fight between them. That knowledge however angered her only more.

" **Tenshi gave her life to seal them."** answered the Drakid. **"In order to destroy the seal we need more than just the power of my eyes. We need her blood and soul."** Nodding towards Salem the battered Grimm Monarch acted.

Several vines made out of Grimm matter grew out of the black altar on which Tenshi's comatose Vessel was, and quickly penetrated her outer shell and began to rapidly suck out blood out of the body. Salem waited till she had extracted most of the liquid leaving just enough for the body to survive. With one swipe of her hand she extended the black ropes towards the one Drakid who had the most of her peers power circling around it. Upon reaching it the black power consumed the Grimm tentacles, instantly evaporating the rest of Tenshi's blood.

For a moment nothing happened. Salem was about to ask as suddenly a shudder, a sickening groan it seemed like, swept through the cave. The next second the sacred indestructible prison holding the uncontainable shattered, as if it was a construct made of cheap glass.

Salem herself couldn't help but feel slight discomfort as the creature before bawled over the ground. The monster attempted to stand up but it's legs and arms failed to support its weight. The wings were gruesomely mauled, and it's back was a single bloody mess.

" _ **Mother!"**_ the creature mewled helplessly. The words barely had left it's mouth and the black matter surrounding it surged, entering though mouth, ears, the destroyed nose and the endless open wounds all over it's body.

It lead out a scream that was a strange mix of agony and pleasured bliss, as it's mother reconstructed shattered bones, repairing annihilated organs and the partially missing spleen.

" **You who is one of my first and most perfect of children, are born anew today!"** The Drakid stood up and straightened it's, or rather _her_ pose. **"Be once again the horror that plagued the old world, the nightmare come true. Live again mighty Alpha Astrea!"**

The darkness now flowed in massive waves around her, seemingly swallowing what little light was there. Wounds and scars alike disappeared as more and more of Astrea's crippled form was crafted anew. Only one scar, a massive burn over her heart, refused to vanish.

" **Mother."** said the Alpha, **"What are your orders for me!?"**

Her eyes wandered to the motionless body on the altar, and her mouth formed a vicious smile. "You have slain the bane of our race?"

" **No she is still alive. I need her blood and soul in order to free your brothers and sisters."** the Alpha answered, before turning around. **"For your orders. Tenshi managed to transport Heillbringer away before I was able to stop her. Find it and bring it to me. Also the host that Tenshi chose for herself, find out if she has any offspring or relatives that may serve as vessels for her return. I am sure Salem and her pawns may be able to help you with that task."**


End file.
